


The Reichenbach Hero Returns

by kaitlynlullabee



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-01 03:45:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 38,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/351613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaitlynlullabee/pseuds/kaitlynlullabee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John, not of sound mind, has been hallucinating that Sherlock has been back all along. So what happens when Sherlock comes home for real? Spoilers for series 1 and 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John, ever the military man, sat stock straight in one of the kitchen chairs, staring holes into the backsplash opposite. His utter exhaustion forced the blue tiles to blur and swirl together, but he did not climb the stairs to his bed.

His Browning laid on the table in front of him, a round in the chamber and safety clicked off. He didn’t even glance at it, though he fantasized about its exact heft, its precise weight as he lifted it to his temple. It would be so easy. He thinks that’s what keeps him from following through. Easy was never what John wanted.

No, John wanted the war; the battlefield sang its siren song and John came running.

Even now, without Sher –

_No_ , John thought emphatically, sitting straighter still.

Even without the cases, he corrects; John still lived on the battlefield. He wasn't battling serial killers, kidnappers, thieves, or criminal masterminds, but his life remained a war.

Now, though, John fought depression, loneliness, and insanity. It’d been three years, but that swirling vortex of complete abandonment had not abated. In fact, that gaping maw of nothingness only seemed to widen with time, now threatening to swallow him whole.

_Oh, don’t be so maudlin_ , said the figure in the corner that John actively ignored on a daily basis. The not-really-there man had sprung up during an exceptionally trying day of cleaning out the den and hadn't left John since. That was nearly a year and a half ago.

John kept boring holes into the wall and pretended he had not just heard a dead man’s voice. Tonight was harder than most, though, and a wracking sob tore through John’s chest. Exactly three years since that bloody fool left John behind, but John could still conjure the planes of his ethereal face, the fall of his onyx hair, and worst of all, his thick and lyrical baritone voice. John could still imagine exactly what inflections the git would use, and the apparition would spew them forth with unerring accuracy.

Tonight John imagined him to draw out the ‘au’ sound in ‘maudlin,’ but clip short the rest of his words, and sure enough the ghost recited it just that way. John tore his eyes from the wall in time to see the shade roll his too-light eyes in exasperation and mutter something about sentiment under his breath before walking to the living room to fetch the violin.

John snorted, unbidden tears sliding down his sallow cheeks.

“You bloody bastard,” he said loudly. “You right bloody git.” The shade just scoffed and disappeared.

John knew he was hallucinating. He knew Sherlock was dead and long buried. John had done the burying himself. John knew Ella worried about him; worried about his mental health. But John also knew that he wouldn’t, not for anything in the world, give these hallucinations up. So he did not tell Ella he was seeing a ghost, did not give anything away. He wanted to keep even this little piece of his friend, however fabricated and artificial it was.

The soldier finally cast a glance at the gun on the table, but no longer felt the need to lift it to his head. He was too tired. He was always too tired. This was how his nightly ritual always ended: John getting up from the chair and going to bed.

John struggled to his feet, fumbling with his new cane, and made the trek upstairs to his waiting bed.

“You right bloody git,” he said once more as he folded himself into a painfully tight ball and squeezed his eyes shut. Suicide was not an option; not yet.

Because if he just popped off, _who would be here for Sherlock when he came home?_


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock sneaked another glance at his watch and was spectacularly disappointed to see it had only been three minutes and 14 seconds since the last time he had looked. He scoffed and drummed his hands against the armrests and his feet against the floor.

Times like these were when he missed his Strad the most. Or maybe the cocaine.

He shook his head once, dispelling that thought immediately. He had been clean for almost ten years, and he didn’t plan on going back, no matter how bored he got.

He looked at his watch again and huffed in impatience. The man sitting next to Sherlock (43, twice married, blonde mistress in Brussels, 7 children, non-practicing Jew, hedge fund manager in Kabul, lover of parakeets and expensive pastries, 3 cats he hates) gave him a withering look which Sherlock promptly ignored.

Sherlock hated flying as it was, but this flight (commercial, daytime, coach) was singular. Singular, because after three years, Sherlock could finally return to England.

_Home_ , Sherlock thought with a slight quirk of his lips. His phone buzzed in his pocket and the smirk immediately turned into a sneer.

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE, SHERLOCK. YOU’LL BE HOME SOON ENOUGH

-M

**Sod off, brother dear.**

**-SH**

There is no reply so Sherlock stowed his phone, looking to where Mycroft’s disguised head peeks over the headrest three rows forward and two columns right. The head shook slightly in what Sherlock knows was equal impatience. Mycroft hated flying coach, and quite frankly Sherlock was impressed he’d lasted this long without ordering a slice of cake from the stewardess.

Sherlock forced himself still, steepling his fingers against the scratchy false goatee. He found peace as he walked into the room in his mind palace filled with memories of London, of Westminster, of 221B, of John.

_Home_ , he thinks. Finally.

Sherlock was so tired. Tired of disguises, of espionage, of always seeming to be three steps behind. No more. Moriarty’s web had been torn down, Sebastian Moran dead, and Sherlock’s name ready to be restored.

It only took two years and eight months to do it, but it was done. Four months ago, Sherlock had felt the sickening but liberating crunch of Moran’s neck under his boot.

Sherlock recalled the utter relief he’d felt. It wasn’t immediate. He’d been too-long suspended in suspicion to be relieved immediately. No, he’d walked away from Moran’s body all the way back to the house he was squatting, texted Mycroft and Molly a simple _**It’s finished. –SH**_ and gotten into the shower. It hit him like a sack of hammers then, though. Sherlock had crumpled to his knees under the ice-cold and nasty water, struggling against hyperventilation.

_It’s done_ , were all the words Sherlock could think. And when Mycroft’s men came to collect him it’s all he could say.

_It’sdoneit’sdoneit’sdoneit’sdone._

It took five days of sleep (three induced and two natural) before Sherlock could think or speak of anything else.

To Sherlock’s surprise, Mycroft had met him at the Kabul airport, equipped with disguises and false paperwork to get Sherlock back into the country. Even though Moriarty’s scheme was foiled, Sherlock Holmes, deadman, re-entering the country in all his glory was not advisable.

So Mycroft looked like an eighty year old Iraqi man named Ali Muhajabar, and Sherlock looked like… Well, Sherlock looked like he should be on a large wooden ship, not a smallish metal aircraft.

Mycroft had grinned broadly, saying something about ‘coming full circle,’ as Sherlock had fastened on the scraggly goatee with glue.

“It was a short-lived phase, Mycroft. I find your glee at dressing me up quite inappropriate,” Sherlock had said, smoothing down the front of his costume vest.

Mycroft had become positively intolerable when a boy of no more than 7 or 8 years approached him in airport security asking in Arabic if Sherlock _was really a pirate?_

Sherlock had scoffed and glared, telling the mother in flawless Arabic to keep a closer watch on the child. Mycroft had beamed.

So here Sherlock sat, dressed in a flowing white shirt and tight leather vest, scraggly goatee and all, waiting for the plane to take him home. His phone buzzed again:

DO TRY TO RESTRAIN YOURSELF, YOU’RE DRAWING UNWANTED ATTENTION.

-M

Sherlock scowled at the screen before feeling the stares of the people around him. He hadn’t even realized he’d been muttering, but everyone else had apparently. Sherlock only tucked his phone away and turned to the window to watch the European countryside drift by miles below.

_Only six more hours_ , he thought, trying to ignore the pinch in his chest that suspiciously resembled sentiment.


	3. Chapter 3

John woke to Mrs. Hudson’s knocking.

“John, dear, it’s time,” he sweet voice said quietly from the doorway.

“Alright, Mrs. Hudson, let me wash up a bit,” John said as he rolled to a sitting position, grasping for his cane.

“No rush, dear, no rush,” came her reply as she pulled the door shut and slowly made her way back downstairs, favoring her hip.

 _What a pair we make_ , thought John bitterly.

He looked toward the clock, and somewhere deep in the shell of an existence he now struggled to uphold he felt something akin to surprise. He had slept for seven hours. He never slept for more than three, woken violently by dreams of a black shape hurtling toward the ground against a backdrop of beige.

Out of the bathroom and into his clothes, John met Mrs. Hudson and his haunt in the den, and together they proceeded to the cemetery, stopping for flowers along the way.

Somewhere between the flower shop and when John shook Lestrade’s waiting hand at the grave, John’s shade of a friend and gone.

“Alright?” Lestrade asked the Baker Street pair.

“Yes, dear, just fine. And you? How’s Molly, dear thing?” Mrs. Hudson was ever the optimist, though her voice wavered a bit.

“Fine, fine,” Lestrade said absently, looking pointedly at John. John only looked down at the glossy gravestone. He still had not completely forgive the Detective Inspector, but lately John couldn’t scare up a grimace, let alone hate for the grey haired man.

When John remained silent to Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson regaled him with small talk and questions about Molly Hooper, who the Inspector had just begun dating. 

John scoffed internally and tuned them out. He watched the black gravestone, watched the reflection of the trees in its polished surface. He vaguely acknowledged the tears now falling from his face. Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson fell back to give him some privacy, but John didn’t notice.

He ran a violently shaking hand down his too-thin face and squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted it all to end: the loneliness, the ridiculous emptiness. John wanted it all to stop. He wanted Sherlock home, wanted these last years to never have happened…

“What gave you the stupid fucking idea to pitch yourself off that roof, Sherlock?” John asked the grave, not expecting an answer. But when he got one, the surprise he felt was shortlived.

_I went the one place I knew you couldn’t follow, John. I kept you safe._

_Only my ghoulie_ , John thought, opening his eyes and seeing his friend next to him, looking downward.

John coughed a laugh at the scene before him: Sherlock Holmes the genius consulting detective, standing at his own grave. If he were really there, Sherlock would have made a comment about the ironic tragedy of the spectacle, maybe quoting Bronte or Rilke. Maybe not. John hadn’t been long enough at 221B to figure out the mad man, and now he doubts that even if they’d lived together for another thousand years Sherlock wouldn't still have been an enigma.

John looked away from the towering figure, back to the gravestone.

Three years. Three whole years without him.

An immense weight was laid upon John’s back, one he was familiar with; it was the same weight he felt every night in the kitchen with the gun before him. Today, though, in the daylight, standing atop Sherlock’s broken body, John let it overtake him.

He sank to his knees, cane clattering and plastic wrapped flowers crinkling beside him. Sobs convulsed his entire body, and John was sure he could feel seams rip apart and his soul leak out of his hands where they fisted in the grass and dirt next to the headstone. He could feel Sherlock six feet beneath him; could pretend he’s sending his soul to curl and wrap around his white bones. It made losing the damn thing that much more bearable.

John was only minutely aware of Lestrade’s strong grip on his shoulders, pulling him away from the grave and his only true friend. John put up a small struggle; he didn’t want to leave Sherlock all alone underground. He knew he was saying things but couldn't hear the words. Mrs. Hudson was in tears as she picked up John’s cane and followed Lestrade who was now half dragging, half carrying John back to the kerb and cab.

“Come on, then John, let’s get you home,” Lestrade said quietly as he wrangled John into the cab. Mrs. Hudson climbed in after, and the ride back to Baker Street was silent except for John’s broken mutterings and heaving sobs.

John didn't remember the cab stopping or climbing the seventeen stairs to the flat or walking the extra fourteen paces to Sherlock’s bedroom, but when he woke up tangled and sweaty in the grey sheets of his dead friend’s bed, he realized such a journey must have occurred.

Instead of getting up, making the bed, and leaving as he usually does when his nighttime unconscious excursions lead him here, John just untangled his legs from the sheets and inhaled sharply, forcing himself to go back to sleep, surrounded by Sherlock.


	4. Chapter 4

With a bit of delay due to an unexpected storm just over France, Sherlock’s flight from Kabul to Cardiff went well.

 _Well_ , Sherlock thought, _it went easily enough._

Sherlock had breezed through customs, even refraining from correcting the Welsh information manager’s grammar.

 _God, I hate Wales_ , Sherlock thought with a sneer as he changed out of the disguise in the terminal restroom. Opening the kit Mycroft had packed for him, Sherlock was pleased to see a brand new, expertly tailored Tom Ford suit in dark grey, with an accompanying navy blue Oxford. He changed quickly, disposing of the ghastly false beard in the bin but stowing the rest of the costume messily in the suitcase that had held his suit. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, Sherlock was slightly taken aback by his appearance. He’d lost some weight, but that was to be expected. What Sherlock didn’t expect were the dark lines etched into his face and the new grey patches of hair at his temples.

Wrinkles and greying. Interesting.

Sherlock straightened his jacket once more before exiting the restroom to join his brother and team of government officials at the kerb.

Walking into the harsh Welsh wind, Sherlock frowned.

 _I hate Wales_ , he thought once more before handing off his luggage to a burly henchman of Mycroft’s (37 years old, no romantic attachments, two large dogs, old football injury, weak sight in left eye due to blunt trauma, needs hearing aid but too stubborn) and piling into the black SUV uncharacteristic of his brother but necessary for the six of them.

Settled into the car, however cramped, Sherlock barely had time to acknowledge the direction the driver was taking them (not the way Sherlock would have chosen to get to the road into England, but correct nonetheless) before Mycroft turned awkwardly toward him from the passenger seat.

Sherlock smirked. On the flight Mycroft had obtained a stiff neck due to his costume turban. When getting into the car, Sherlock had chosen the seat that would cause the most discomfort for his insufferable brother should he wish to face him whilst speaking.

Sherlock was not disappointed. Before Mycroft could utter a word, Sherlock watched the strained muscle pull tight in his brother’s neck and pain flash in his features. Mycroft gave up trying to face his younger brother and pulled out his phone instead, much to Sherlock’s relief: he didn’t think he’d be able to talk, he was too wired.

They were two hours away from London, three hours away from home (allowing for end-of-day traffic). His phone buzzed:

HOW DO YOU PLAN ON CONFRONTING HIM, SHERLOCK?

-M

Sherlock didn’t need clarification on ‘him,’ of course Mycroft meant John.

**I have no idea.**

**-SH**

NOT VERY FORWARD THINKING OF YOU, SHERLOCK.

-M

**Do shut up, Mycroft.**

**-SH**

HE MIGHT NOT UNDERSTAND. HE’S BEEN QUITE… FRAGILE, OF LATE. THIS MIGHT PUSH HIM OVER THE EDGE.

-M

Sherlock grimaced. Mycroft was always so dramatic, even in his text messages. Mycroft had been keeping him updated on John, so he knew of his friend’s decline.

YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL

-M

**You don’t think I know that? John will be fine. He’s always fine.**

**-SH**

I THINK YOU’LL FIND THAT HE IS DECIDEDLY NOT FINE. IN THE LAST MONTH ALONE, HE’S SLEPT AT YOUR ‘GRAVE’ NO LESS THAN 14 TIMES.

-M

Sherlock had no reply for that. It shouldn’t have hurt him to know John was broken, but it did, badly. The pain reminded him of a sucking chest wound he’d obtained about a year past, unsuccessfully dodging a bullet.

**Sentiment.**

**-SH**

PRECISELY. I DID WARN YOU, BROTHER DEAR.

-M

**You did nothing of the sort. Now I would very much appreciate your silence until we’ve reached our destination. I’m thinking.**

**-SH**

Mycroft hummed a small disapproving noise from the front seat but didn’t send another text. Sherlock was grateful. The knot of anticipation that had sat low in his belly for the last four months reared its ugly head and threatened to turn Sherlock into a quivering pool of anxiety. Sherlock swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat, and counted the mile markers on the side of the road.

He had, apparently, ‘zoned out’ (as John called it), because Sherlock does not remember the drive to the border, only arriving at the border. Sherlock cleared his dry throat, shaking himself of the dark paths his thoughts had taken (coming home to 221B to find the flat empty of everything; finding John incapacitated by his return and subsequently sectioned; Lestrade refusing him another case as long as he was on the force) and reached for a bottle of water. They were in England now, but instead of uncurling, that little knot wound tighter and tighter. Despite thinking of little else, Sherlock still had not come up with a plan to confront John. He reluctantly pulled out his phone, typing off a message quickly.

**Any suggestions?**

**-SH**

NO.

-M

**Insufferable arse.**

**-SH**

NOW, NOW, MUMMY WOULDN’T LIKE THAT.

-M

Sherlock huffed indignantly. He was quickly running out of options and they were only an hour and a half out from London. He sent another text.

**I’m in England, hour and a half out from London. What do I do about John?**

**-SH**

It took two minutes to get a reply.

that’s a tuff 1. maybe meet evry1 else 1st b4 john. that way u hav support?

-MOLLY

The thought hadn’t even occurred to Sherlock. Leave it to Molly Hooper to catch something he wouldn’t. He was so pleased with the suggestion, he didn’t even bother to correct her horrid grammar.

**Thank you, Molly Hooper. I will meet you, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade at your flat in two hours. Please be discreet when collecting them.**

**-SH**

of course. c u then.

-MOLLY

**I’m meeting Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, and Molly beforehand. Two hours, at her flat.**

**-SH**

AND YOU THINK THAT’S A GOOD IDEA?

-M

**Yes.**

**-SH**

ALRIGHT THEN.

-M

Sherlock texted him the address and an additional request for silence before returning to his activity of counting the mile markers.


	5. Chapter 5

Mrs. Hudson had been up twice with sandwiches and tea, but John had turned her away both times, the second angrily but he couldn’t find it in himself to feel sorry.

 _Now, John, that’s no way to treat Mrs. Hudson. She did make you tea, after all._ The Not-Sherlock sat at the windowsill, he had been there all day.

John just harrumphed and rolled over. He was not in the mood to entertain ghosts. John wasn’t in the mood for much of anything, really. He couldn’t even call up tears anymore, which was interesting.

Here, in Sherlock’s room, in Sherlock’s bed, breathing in Sherlock’s faded-but-still-present smell, John couldn’t even summon tears.

For the past three years, John had done absolutely nothing. When Sherlock’s heart stopped, John’s entire existence stopped. 

Oh, he had tried; John did try. Six months after the funeral, John had tried to go back to work. Not cases, of course, Lestrade hadn’t even so much as looked again at John. No, John had taken up a position as a physician at a surgery in Brixton. Molly Hooper had offered him a position at Bart’s but John couldn’t even hear the name without flinching.

The job had lasted for about a year. He had wiped runny noses and prescribed simple antibiotics and it had slowly driven him completely batty. Until the Not-Sherlock had shown up. John had reacted aversely to the apparition at first, dropping the cup he’s just filled. The Not-Sherlock just shot him a withering look and sat down in the Actual-Sherlock’s chair. Mrs. Hudson had come running at the sound of breaking china, and John had helped her clean up the mess without acknowledging Not-Sherlock. But John kept giving him sceptical, sidelong glances until, noticing his distraction, Mrs. Hudson returned to her own flat. Waiting until he heard her front door click shut, John went and sat in his chair across from the dead man. John just stared, mouth hanging slightly ajar. The Not-Sherlock stared back, his too-light eyes scrutinizing John from beyond the grave. They sat like that for hours, until the ghost grunted, stood up, and walked down the hall to the dead man’s bedroom. John had wept like a baby that night. The next night John’s near-suicide ritual began and continued every night since then. A year and a half of imagining Sherlock, of hearing snippets of Bach on that damn Stradivarius (thought it never truly left its case leaned against the window. A year and a half of hearing a dead man’s voice in his ear.

With the arrival of the ghost, John quit work and quit living. Though the rent was always paid in full and the cupboards always stocked (John suspected Mycroft but never asked, not really wanting to know the answer), John couldn’t be said to have done anything but grieve for the last year and a half.

Today was no different. The anniversary of Sherlock’s death. 

John groaned into Sherlock’s pillow, willing himself to sink into the mattress, into the floor, down into the ground, into the ground with Sherlock.

John wheezed with pain once and then drifted back into unconsciousness.


	6. Chapter 6

Molly’s flat was horrid. Sherlock would never understand why a woman of her means would choose to live in such squalor. Upon his and Mycroft’s arrival, Sherlock hadn’t bothered to knock, simply opening the front door. He regretted the decision. Knocking would have allowed some time for Molly to prepare the other two people in her flat (the other two unaware people) for who was on the other side of the door. But Sherlock, being Sherlock, simply burst into the tiny bedsit.

There was perhaps a second and a half of complete silence before all hell broke loose.

Mrs. Hudson screamed once, but fainted where she stood. Luckily the couch (if you could call it that) caught the older woman.

Lestrade, however, did not lose consciousness. Sherlock wished he had. The DI stood gaping at the seemingly resurrected man in the doorway for a second more before striding right up to Sherlock and punching him squarely in the face so hard he fell.

On the ground, dumbfounded and holding his jaw, Sherlock was then assaulted by a quite colorful array of insults and threats. Recovering quickly, Sherlock got up off the ground and stood silently waiting for Lestrade to finish.

It didn’t take long.

Lestrade’s yells tapered off, replace by sobs. The man was openly crying.

 _Interesting development_ , Sherlock thought, head cocked to the side and brow slightly furrowed as he watched the grey haired man try to regain his wits.

Molly was standing over Mrs. Hudson, checking her vitals and trying to rouse her. Mycroft stood silently just to the right of Sherlock, politely averting his eyes from Lestrade’s extreme show of emotion.

Failing to rouse Mrs. Hudson but determining her healthy, Molly came up behind Lestrade, putting a hand on his shoulder, worry creasing her face.

She looked at Sherlock and smiled wanly.

“Hello Sherlock, Mycroft,” she nodded to them both.

“Hello Molly Hooper,” Sherlock’s voice seemed to have a calming effect on Lestrade because he straightened and wiped his face.

“You arse, you fucking bloody arse,” he said quietly, gripping Sherlock’s arms tightly.

“Yes, yes, you must learn to be a bit more creative in your coherent insults, Lestrade, they’re becoming tedious. Now if you’ll step aside and let my brother and I inside please, I’ll explain. Additionally, your neighbors, Molly, are all watching out their windows, so to avoid further unnecessary interruptions, please let us in.”

Instead of hitting Sherlock again, Lestrade pulled the younger man into an extremely awkward embrace, grinning like a fool.

“Exactly the same Sherlock. You’d think dying would make you more compassionate or something.”

Sherlock scoffed.

“Come in, come in. Tea?” Molly peeled Lestrade off of Sherlock and ushered the three of them back into the flat. Sherlock grunted his assent and Mycroft gave a much more polite one, but before she turned to the kettle, Molly kissed Lestrade soundly.

 _Curiouser and curiouser_ , Sherlock thought. _I wonder what brought them together…_

Molly, seeming to have realized her actions, blushed and smiled sheepishly at Sherlock and shrugged.

Mycroft maneuvered around Sherlock and sat gingerly in a kitchen chair, accepting graciously the cup he was offered.

Sherlock observed that his older brother had put on thirteen pounds in the last four months, but didn’t look over 15 stone 10. While Sherlock had been gone, Mycroft has steadily and frighteningly lost weight. Now that Sherlock was relatively safe again, Mycroft had begun to put the weight back on.

 _Ever the mother hen_. Sherlock shook his head with disgust. _Sentiment…_

“Sherlock?” Molly’s small voice pulled him from his deductions and he took the proffered mug of steaming tea.

“Thank you, Molly,” Sherlock gave her a small smile and sat in the seat farthest from his brother. He looked to Lestrade the exact moment something clicked in the DI’s head.

“Wait, Molly, why are you so calm – you knew?!” Lestrade’s yell made the small girl flinch but also seemed to bring Mrs. Hudson out of her fit.

Ignoring a reddening Lestrade, Molly rushed to help the old woman to a sitting position, asking her if she was alright.

Sherlock drew Mrs. Hudson’s gaze and held it steadily, if a little warily. Molly quieted when she saw the silent exchange, waiting for another fainting spell. It did not come. Mrs. Hudson simply stared at Sherlock and Sherlock at Mrs. Hudson. Tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks but when she spoke her voice did not waiver.

“He’s going to kill you, dear,” was all she said.

Sherlock closed his eyes slowly, breathing deeply through his mouth.

“I know,” he said. _I know._


	7. Chapter 7

John, still slumbering fitfully in Sherlock’s bed, dreamed of nothing and everything at the same time. He drifted between several of his worst nightmares and quite a few of his most dear dreams.

He tossed and turned when his mind dragged him back to Afghanistan, working up a thin sheen of sweat as his brow furrowed in remembered pain. The blood pooling in the sand beneath him transformed into the blood pooling beneath Sherlock on concrete. The constant sound of gunfire replaced by the shrill sound of a concussion and people’s screams. Muzzle flare turned into camera flashes; orders shouted from his commanding officers changed into shouted questions from eager vulture-like reporters. “Get down, men, down,” changed into “Sherlock Holmes is a fraud, a fraud.”

But then something miraculous happened. The war still raged on in the background, the pain in his shoulder still there, Sherlock’s broken body was still broken, but a peace settled over the doctor, quelling his fears. He felt comfortable enough to breathe in and out, in and out. He closed his eyes against the dying men around him, the dead man on the ground, and opened them to too-light eyes staring down at him from their towering place in the towering head of one very alive towering Sherlock. It was like any other of the good days, and Sherlock had just asked him for his opinion on a motive. Sherlock understood the logistics of motives, the how’s and why’s, on a very superficial level, his genius (and John thinks perhaps his Asperger’s) preventing him from truly understanding an emotional motive. So when Sherlock was stumped on sentiment, he would look to his ever-faithful partner John, and John would supply the best answer he could. John loved these moments, lived for them even; those moments when Sherlock would ask John, an ordinary man, for his vital opinion on a matter of importance. When John answered satisfactorily enough for the younger man, Sherlock would turn and give him a smile that seemed reserved especially for him.

John, Sherlock’s only true friend, would light up just a little inside every time Sherlock shared one of those smiles with him. Sometimes it seemed that John was only a pet to Sherlock, but if that were the case, John was a willing lapdog. He needed Sherlock, that was certain. He had even said so, at Sherlock’s graveside all those years ago.

_I was so alone and I owe you so much._

John had never spoken truer words. Before Sherlock, John was a broken soldier, returned home to therapy and a ratty little bedsit, longing for something exciting to happen to him but beginning to realize nothing ever would. After Mike Stamford had so introduced him to the bafflingly arrogant and exquisitely brilliant consulting detective, John wasn’t broken or in need of something to do any longer.

John had stopped going to see his therapist, Ella, soon after he had moved into 221B. Mycroft had got that right at least: she had it all wrong. And the eighteen months thereafter were perfect: Sherlock was the only thing John ever needed. And John believed wholeheartedly that Sherlock needed John just as much, despite what he thought on the matter.

John stayed in this dream for a while, holding on with whatever energy he had left in his leaking soul. He wanted more than anything to wake up and have the real Sherlock staring down at him, possibly prepared to berate him for sleeping in his bed. John wanted more than anything for things to go back to the way they had been. But, with the last vestiges of sanity he possessed, John knew that this couldn’t happen. And that’s why these simple dreams, not the dreams of winning the lottery or marrying and having a dozen little brats running around… No, these simple and straightforward dreams that were more like memories than actual dreams… These dreams were what John grasped for every time he finally shut his eyes. These dreams were what made living bearable for the army doctor.

John woke finally, coming up out of the fear- and anxiety-induced haze into real life. He groaned in defiance of the words real and life. For John, right now, mourning the loss of his best and only friend, he was neither real nor living. John was in a stasis, one he didn’t plan on freeing himself from anytime soon.

Stasis was comfortable, however alone he was.

_Alone is what protects me._

Sherlock’s last words to him face-to-face came unbidden and unwanted to his mind. John had been so angry with Sherlock then. He regretted that anger, more than anything else he ever did in his life. He regretted his harsh words, words like _machine_. John was disgusted with himself. Despite the talk they had had while Sherlock was on the edge… John needed closure. John needed forgiveness. John needed _Sherlock._

 _Really, John, I believe you can do better than this._ Be _better than this. This slovenly heap you’ve fallen into his pathetic. Pick yourself up. Do something so I don’t have to worry about you anymore._

“You don’t worry about me now, you’re dead! You’re dead and gone and you left me all alone, alone like I met you except this is worse. This is ten times worse, because I had something meaningful, you twat. You pitched yourself off that fucking roof and ripped a giant Sherlock shaped hole in my life! You ruined me, you bastard. You ruined me.” John had slowly wound down from the irate man he had momentarily become, finishing off his unnecessary rant to the ghost in the corner. The ghost didn’t even bat an eyelash, for which John was grateful. If Not-Sherlock had given him a pitying look, or worse, a sad one, John didn’t think he could have handled it.

But the Not-Sherlock just blinked at John, looking never the worse for wear.

John groaned, angry breaths wheezing out of his chest. His breath was labored and John scoffed at the thought that maybe he’d follow Sherlock into the grave after all, dying of something so ordinary as a heart attack.

He turned his head into the remaining pillow, breathing in but only smelling himself on it. It was a tragedy in and of itself, that John could no longer smell Sherlock’s shampoo on the pillow.

John sighed and stood up, floundering when he realized his cane was hanging on the door handle, so far away. He steeled himself, hobbling over to get it before he returned to the bed and began stripping the mattress of the sheets. It’d been three years since they were last washed, but John thought he should leave Sherlock’s room exactly as it had been. But now, with Sherlock’s ghost watching him over his shoulder, John ripped the sheets off the bed, jumbling them into one great pile, and dropped them into a corner. He’d come back for them when Mrs. Hudson came up to do the washing. 

They were soiled. John had suffocated the Sherlock right out them in an attempt to keep the man all around him. He wouldn’t be making that same mistake again.


	8. Chapter 8

The small group of people sitting in Molly Hooper’s flat was in rapt silence. All except for Mycroft, who scoffed and snorted when his younger brother would embellish or cut short some of the details of his retelling. Sherlock would only glare at the man, and it was enough to keep Mycroft from interrupting further than the tuts.

Every once in a while Lestrade would ask a completely idiotic question (at least to Sherlock) and the consulting detective would huff and answer as quickly as possible. After the fifth interruption from the DI, though, Sherlock began to think that the questions were only Lestrade’s way of interacting with Sherlock directly; making sure he was really seeing and hearing Sherlock in front of him, so Sherlock did not get too angry.

Mrs. Hudson sat quietly, her tears drifting off after a large and quite extensive hug from the dead man. Sherlock usually abhorred such overt affection, but Mrs. Hudson was Mrs. Hudson and secretly he enjoyed the embrace. She sipped her tea, just content to listen to Sherlock tell his story.

Molly was quite enraptured, as well. She sat next to Lestrade, holding his hand tightly. She’d been a part of the whole scheme but it was still nice to hear what he had been up to from his mouth and not through texts.

After what seemed like days (but was really only two hours and thirty six minutes) Sherlock’s story was finished and the group sat in silence, digesting the whole affair.

“While that was scintillating Sherlock, it seems that now we have to move on to the crux of the matter, don’t you think?” Mycroft piped up after what he thought was enough silence.

“Do be quiet, Mycroft. But yes, I suppose you are right. Molly, I texted you earlier with an issue, have you thought any further on the matter?” Leave it to Sherlock to push things like this off on Molly. She floundered only for a second before looking him in the eye and answering.

“Uh, uh, yes, actually. I think it’s best for you to just treat it like a plaster… You know, quick and painlessly as possible. I don’t think there’s any way for you to, um, couch this is terms he’d understand any more than just outright and straightforward.” Molly’s face wasn’t even a bit flushed and Sherlock was mildly impressed. _Maybe this… thing with Lestrade was good for her._

“Hmm. Lestrade?” Sherlock wanted everyone’s opinion on the matter, collecting all the data he could.

“This is about John, I’m assuming? Right, well, maybe just show up? Not quite as dramatically as you did here, mind, but maybe let him react to your presence, not initiating anything. I think it’d be quite a shock to him if you just burst in. He hasn’t been… well lately. Not well at all.” Lestrade said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

At the mention of John’s state, Mrs. Hudson sniffled and whimpered a bit.

“Sherlock, how could you do this to him? Never mind us, he’s so broken without you. How could you be so selfish?” She dabbed at her nose with a tissue, trying to keep from crying again.

That pain that sat deep in Sherlock’s chest panged at her words. How could you do this to him? How could he have done this to him? He did it to protect him. Rage burst fiery in Sherlock’s chest, spreading out into his features ever-so-slightly. Only Mycroft noticed Sherlock’s change in demeanor, clearing his throat and shaking his head slightly toward his brother.

“Sherlock, maybe Lestrade is right. Perhaps just presenting yourself to him in the least overt way possible would be best,” the government man shifted his umbrella, using it as a standing armrest. Sherlock shot him a look of ire, hating how his brother could read him like a book and changed the direction of his thoughts with a few well-placed words. Mycroft has always been able to do it, and it was a deep-seated hate in Sherlock that he was not able to do the same to Mycroft.

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, sipping at his now cold tea.

“Tonight, then?” Sherlock asked, trying to quell the anticipation and fear in his gut.

“Quickest is best, dear,” said Mrs. Hudson.

“Indeed,” said Sherlock ruefully.


	9. Chapter 9

Having scrubbed away the last remaining bits of his restless day of sleep, John sat in the den having a conversation with Not-Sherlock. Often times this would happen when John could not bear the silence any longer and speaking to the skull like Sherlock always had and still seemed obscene, so he spoke with the ghost. The conversations were rarely fulfilling, because Not-Sherlock only said what John thought he would say, never challenging the soldier on anything other than what John already challenged himself.

 _Mrs. Hudson went out_ , said Not-Sherlock, steepling his hands at his chin.

“Yes, and you know that because I know that. I called for her a half hour ago, but she didn’t answer,” John said drily, his voice scratchy from yelling in his sleep.

_Hmm, yes, but remember that she never answered when I called._

“That’s because you took advantage of her. She’s not our housekeeper, but you always ignored that fact, yelling down the chimney to her whenever you wanted tea and I was out.” John looked at Not-Sherlock then, laughter dancing in the dead man’s eyes.

 _Not our housekeeper, indeed,_ he said, chuckling.

John, though he felt the laughter bubble up in his chest, swallowed his giggles, because he knew if he began laughing, it’d not stop. He knew from experience. The first week Not-Sherlock had been present, the ghost had looked over his shoulder as John was typing up his final blog entry and said something so utterly _Sherlock_ and so utterly ridiculous, John was helpless to the hysterical laughter. He didn’t stop laughing till the laughs had turned to tears, and even then John had just curled up in Sherlock’s armchair and wept and wept and wept.

John did not want a repeat of that harrowing experience, so he swallowed the chuckles down and looked away from the really-but-not-really empty chair across from him.

Just another reminder of Sherlock’s absence, that bloody chair was. So resembling of its former occupant: stylish, sleek, stark, and extraordinarily functional. John’s was warm, cozy, and welcoming, overstuffed cushions threatening to swallow up whoever sat upon it. John, despite getting rid of most of the case files and clutter and general mess in the den that was Sherlock’s, he could not bring himself to get rid of the chair.

The greenish Le Corbusier, always cold from disuse, was a constant physical reminder of his loss, but John held a secret in his heart that he couldn’t ever truly reveal to even himself.

 _I can’t get rid of the chair_ , John thought, _if the chair is gone, he’ll be so angry when he comes home. No, the chair stays._

John knew it was silly. Ridiculous. Insane. But he couldn’t help but keep that hope locked so far away within himself he could safely ignore it until such nights when he’d grip the butt of his Browning. Those nights he’d look toward that deep recess in his mind, to the little glow of hope that Sherlock was out there, somewhere, waiting to come home to 221B, and he’d loosen his grip on the gun and go to bed. 

It was pure agony, living without Sherlock. John rubbed his face, exhaling heavily.

_It does you no good to keep this up, John._

“I know, Sherlock. I know,” John said, shaking his head from side to side.

_You know but you do nothing to change it? Isn’t that insanity? Doing the same things over and over and expecting a different result each time?_

“Yes, quite. But you see, I know I’m insane, so it doesn’t matter.”

_If you say so, John._

John remained silent after that, wishing the Real-Sherlock were there to tell him to get off his arse and solve a murder or catch a bank robber. Life without Sherlock wasn’t life, plain and simple. John couldn’t go back to before, that was already proven with the failed try at the surgery in Brixton. And he couldn’t very well continue, either. Not without the reason John had for being able to pick up a teacup without spilling its contents and the reason he could traipse about without the damn cane. 

His tremor had returned tenfold and his limp had returned threefold.

Sherlock had completed John, made him whole again, and when he’d gone he tore an even bigger hole than was there before, and ensured it would not be reconcilable. John picked up his cup and saucer and threw them across the room to shatter against the damn yellow spray-paint face, shards sticking out of the plaster.

 _The wall had it coming_ , said the spectre across from him. 

John scoffed and folded in on himself. He didn’t weep, not this time, but simply turned all the noise of the flat, the noise of Baker Street, Westminster, London, England, the Earth, and the universe out of his head, retreating to the whistling in his soul that was made when the wind blew through the Sherlock-shaped void in John’s very being.


	10. Chapter 10

“Molly, what have you done with my conditioner?” Sherlock bellowed out the bathroom door. Molly had offered him the use of her flat to clean up a bit before he went home.

“It’s been three years, Sherlock, I’ve thrown it out. Use mine, I don’t mind,” Molly’s muffled reply came through the thick wooden door. Sherlock huffed in annoyance.

“Yours never does the right thing to my hair, Molly. Go get me some of mine.” Despite his sometimes reserved demeanor, Sherlock could certainly get someone’s attention. He bellowed like a fishmonger when he wanted something, and unfortunately poor Molly was seemingly always getting the brunt of his yells. It didn’t bother her nearly as much as it should have.

“Greg, you don’t mind if I pop down to Tesco quickly, do you? He’s so fickle about that damn conditioner, if I don’t do it he’ll be in such a way I fear for John’s safety, not Sherlock’s.”

Lestrade looked up from the file Mycroft had handed him on Sherlock’s maneuvers in Europe over the past three years and nodded vaguely.

“Yeah, yeah, do whatever his majesty requ –,” Lestrade stops himself short of finishing his well-used nickname, eyes glazing over slightly. “I still find it hard to believe he’s here, for real.”

Molly smiled pityingly at the policeman, putting a small hand on his shoulder.

“I know, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. Tonight, when everyone’s gone I’ll explain everything, okay?” When she leaned down to kiss him on the cheek, another of Sherlock’s shouts came from the depths of her flat.

“Molly, if you don’t leave within the next three minutes, the water heater will have run out by the time you’ve returned and it will have been in vain. Go now!”

Molly scoffed and headed out the door, making sure to shut it loud enough so Sherlock could hear it over the shower.

Lestrade, having finished both his tea and the case file, stood up from the table and walked to the kettle, turning over the content of the manila folder in his mind.

“I can’t imagine what he’s been through,” said the DI, filling his cup again.

“No,” said Mycroft simply and smoothly. “Neither can I.”

“And he’s been doing this for the past three years? Trekking across the Continent, searching for and finding each of Moriarty’s lackeys and killing them?”

Mycroft only nodded, gripping his brolly handle tighter, shaking his head when Lestrade gestures to his cup and then the kettle.

“Does he seem to be experiencing any adverse effects? To, like, isolation, the acts themselves… Anything?” Lestrade sat back down, glancing at the clock in passing.

“Not that I can tell, no. I think he’s divorced himself so far from feeling anything other than the need to do that it’ll be a long while before we see any of his actions’ effects in his demeanor. Normally I’d ask someone closer to him than I’ve been to watch him carefully, but there isn’t anyone else. For the past three years his only contacts have been Dr. Hooper and I.” Mycroft settled himself further into the uncomfortable table chair, crossing his legs at the knees. “I do worry that he will slip.”

Lestrade looked startled.

“You mean, back into the drugs? Do you really think he would survive it this time? We got him out just in time with the last bout. Are you that afraid he’s going to slip, sir?”

“I don’t know. He seems fine for the moment, but I don’t know how he’s going to be after tonight… Dr. Watson might be the one piece missing; whether he’ll force Sherlock to stay clean or slip is a mystery at this point.” Lestrade nodded vaguely, praying that tonight would go well.

“Well, sir, for our sake I hope that they don’t kill each other. I don’t want to do any more paperwork than I have to already. How are you going to present him to the public? As far as they’re concerned, he’s still dead, even though Moriarty’s scheme collapsed in on itself.”

“Hmm, that is something we are not altogether certain on. In fact, whenever I bring it up, Sherlock refuses to speak on it. He’s quite stubborn. I think perhaps we’ll address the matter after this present debacle is dealt with, seeing as there may be no point to schedule press conferences or interviews if the good doctor kills him.”

Lestrade laughed once, running his rough hands over his even rougher face.

“I still can’t believe he’s here. Three years ago today. I was at his grave earlier, you know? Left some flowers. Wait, who’s buried in the grave, then?” Lestrade looked at the other man sceptically.

“James Moriarty.” Mycroft said a little smugly; it was his idea, after all.

“Shit… John really is going to kill him, now. You know, I’ve had to collect him from sleeping at that bloody cemetery more times than I’d like to admit these past years? And for all his grieving, the man who strapped a vest of Semtex to his chest is lying in the grave he thought held his best friend…” Lestrade heaved in a weighted breath, praying even more fervently that John would see reason.

Mycroft only hummed a little dismissively, gripping the handle of his umbrella tighter.

“It was appropriate and necessary at the time. Burying Moriarty in a grave marked with his name was not advisable, considering at that point James Moriarty was Richard Brook and completely innocent, though we know better now. Moriarty did not exist and we needed a body to bury.” Mycroft looked like he’d just eaten a lemon, his face scrunched in disgust. Lestrade stepped back from the situation, knowing better than to anger him.

“I’m just saying, John is not going to be very happy about this,” Lestrade said, putting his hands up defensively.

The door to the flat opened and Molly walked in, carrying a plastic bag filled with hair care products. She dried her feet as quickly as she could, bustling her way past the men in the kitchen, heading back toward the bathroom.

Lestrade laughed at the picture she made, bundled up tight against the London chill, breathing heavily from probably literally running to Tesco and back.

“Sherlock, I have it here,” she called through the door. A long, pale arm shot out of the door and grabbed the bag from her, quickly disappearing back into the steam. Lestrade laughed loudly, Molly trying to stifle her own giggles. Mycroft just looked mildly annoyed.

“Molly this isn’t the same, it’s got different chemicals in it,” Sherlock hollered from the other side of the door.

“It’s the same brand and type Sherlock, it’s not my fault if they changed the composition!” Molly huffed in annoyance but the smile remained on her face.

“John might not kill him after all, he is exactly the same.” Molly shook her head in amazement, walking away from the loo door.


	11. Chapter 11

John must have fallen asleep in his armchair; the evidence is in the crick in his neck and the stiffness in his hips. It took him a second to pinpoint why he’d woken: his mobile was buzzing on the desk. It was an unfamiliar and utterly unwanted noise. He’d been dreaming of dark fringe tickling his forehead, fluttering kisses on his cheeks and eyelids. John blushed deeply, red creeping up from the neckline of his three-day-old jumper. He should not be having dreams like that.

“You and I weren’t like that; never like that. You were married to you work, and I am straight. It’s part of grieving, maybe?” John asked the ghost that had taken up residence on the couch. Not-Sherlock just glanced at him a bit sideways. Not-Sherlock couldn't ever give an answer for John that John didn’t already know. John wasn’t sure of anything when it came to Sherlock anymore; not sure of his standings with the ethereal man. They were friends, best friends. But sometimes when Sherlock would stand just behind John, reading his blog entry as he typed, his breath just barely brushing over John’s eyelashes – those times made John think maybe he wanted more; maybe they each wanted more.

_John, really, answer the damn phone._

“Yeah, yeah,” said John, stiffly standing and hobbling over to the desk.

**FIVE MISSED CALLS: HARRY WATSON**

**FIVE NEW VOICEMAIL**

**THREE UNREAD TXT MESSAGES**

John ignores the voicemails, selecting delete all. He did not want to speak with Harry. She didn’t truly want to speak with him, either. Clara had come back around, and Harry didn’t want to hear John’s ‘don’t mess this up again’ speeches. John didn’t want to give them, so they had remained in an agreed upon silence for the last six months.

John opened the text messages, only skimming them quickly.

_**John, answer your damn phone, I gave it to you for a reason.** _

_**John, really, this is a bit immature. Answer the phone or I’m coming over.** _

_**I’m not stupid, you know. I know what day it is. Answer your phone or call me back.** _

John sent a quick text off to her, hoping to quell her sudden and insatiable thirst for his attention.

I’m fine, Harriet. Need to be left alone.

-JW

He used her full name as an added jibe, hoping to convey how much he needed her silence through the simple extra letters. He was so tired. He didn’t want to sit here anymore. He grabbed his cane and jacket, leaving his phone on the desk. He needed to go out. He needed to be rid of the smell of Sherlock wafting from the lounge, it was beginning to suffocate him. 

John made it down the first flight of stairs and stopped on the landing.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't smell Sherlock here, only a faint smell of Speedy’s newly baked bread. He couldn't breathe.

He turned and headed back up the stairs to the familiar and waiting smell. He made it halfway, sitting on the stair and fighting hyperventilation.

_Can’t leave, he’ll be lonely. Can’t leave, I’ll forget. Can’t leave. Can’t leavecan’tleavecan’tleave._

John repeated it like a mantra until the words didn’t have meaning any longer; till they were just phonetic sounds, syllables pressed together with forgotten meanings. He and Harry used to make a game for long car rides: they’d each try their hardest to find the one word that no matter how many times you repeated it, it would never lose its meaning. They’d come to a stalemate every time: Harry insisted the one word was sunlight, but when John tested it, it ran all together in his mouth and Harry pouted, having lost.

John had never come to a conclusion, not then at least.

Sobbing on the stairs of his flat, trying not to pass out from lack of oxygen, he had a revelation. The word. The one word that would never lose its meaning no matter how many times you uttered it, no matter how many inflections you put upon it, how many syllables you drew it out to…

He began to repeat this word, curling into a tight ball on the stair way.

“Sherlock, Sherlock, Sher-lock, Sh-er-lock, Sheeerrrlooocckk, SherlockSherlockSherlockSherlock…” A small smile curled John’s lips, only half formed because of the pain in his right leg from the position. Sherlock. The only man in the world who can be abused and twisted and rung out and still retain full meaning for him.

Sherlock had evaded John, avoided telling him the truth, left him behind, forgot him, took him for granted, took advantage, treated him as a manservant… Endless offenses that would have sent most other men (and women) running in the opposite direction, screaming curses. But John stayed and tolerated, because he could see what Sherlock hid so well.

Sherlock was ethereal, in every sense of the word. He looked fey, acted fey, reacted fey… He was different, estranged. And it hurt him. He hid it so well, from everyone and anyone who ever met him. Except John. John, despite Sherlock’s arguments, was not an idiot. He could see it sometimes when Sergeant Donovan called him “freak,” he could see it sometimes when Anderson whispered under his breath behind them, could see it sometimes when Lestrade would give him a withering look of disbelief, when Mycroft would patronize him. 

John could see it.

John, of all people, could see the little tears and shreds in Sherlock’s façade. They weren’t ever devastating and they’d most likely disappear altogether when John spit out his constant and inevitable “extraordinary,” and “sheer bloody brilliance.”

John’s little quirk of the lips smoothed and stretched out into a full smile when he realized this, there on the stairs, three years after Sherlock died.

Sherlock needed John; needed him like a salve for wounds. John was the friend Sherlock had never really had and never knew he wanted. John needed Sherlock, too, obviously.

John was order in Sherlock’s life. A constant to stop his too-fast mind from spinning out of control. John cleaned up after him, cared for him, kept him fed and watered, forced him to sleep and bathe. John was the groundings to Sherlock’s hot-air-balloon mind.

Sherlock gave John just that right amount of chaos, just that correct amount of struggle. John craved the entropy Sherlock provided. John followed Sherlock straight into gunfire and fist fights; never once doubting the relief from monotony that his friend would bring. Sherlock was never dull, made it a point not to be. He sometimes created chaos, just to sit back and smile as it fumed around him. John loved this, needed that sense of purpose, the sense of usefulness he got when around the younger man.

Sherlock wasn’t just like this professionally, either. Sherlock was even more of a chore domestically. Sherlock muddied things up, mussed the sitting room, filthied the fridge, dirtied the countertops. John cleaned up his messes and confronted him on the chemical burns and experiments. It was always a struggle for them, but a welcome and expected struggle.

They were polar opposites, north and south poles on a magnet, pressing against each other in a never-ending fight. John loved it.

John loved _him._

He breathed in and out, even breaths coming easier now that he’d calmed. He stretched a bit on the stair, not getting up and leaving but not returning either.

“I loved you, you bastard. You right bloody git. You left and I never got a chance to tell you, never really knew it myself,” John’s smile faded but the heady feeling of realization didn’t recede.

_Don’t be so dull, John._

John looked up from his seat, looked at the spectre. John smiled grimly and nodded in agreement.

“Dull, right.”

_SherlockSherlockSherlock._

“Mustn’t be dull,” John repeated, folding his hands in his lap. “Never dull.”

_SherlockSherlockSherlock._

_No, John. Never dull._

John stood, finally, and went back upstairs, letting the full and familiar smell of 221B surround him, lap at his clothes and body; seep into his bones.

John’s lips set in a firm but not unhappy line. 

_SherlockSherlockSherlock._

Something had changed in him, John realizes. Something had shifted inside of him; a bit of the weight had gone off his back. Was it some sort of closure, realizing his flatmate and best friend was also the person he was maddeningly in love with? Because now John could admit it.

Sherlock was Sherlock, and John was John. They worked as a team, perfectly complementing each other. Sherlock’s faults were John’s virtues and vice versa. It doesn’t even sound ridiculous in his head anymore.

_I was in love with you, Sherlock. Did you know?_

Now it only sounds ridiculous that John didn’t see it before. He supposed it was some sort of defensive action on his subconscious’ part: a defense mechanism against the pull and draw of Sherlock Holmes. But it was inevitable, he realized now.

_Caring is not an advantage, but you and I weren’t like that. Never like that. We had something different. We were, what was the word? Ethereal together, as a unit. I know what a unit is, I was in the military. You and I were a unit, an item, one thing split into two but still completely and fully functional._

Not-Sherlock only peered curiously at John from the chair opposite.

 _Maybe_ , he conceded, steepling his pale and perfect fingers. _Need more data to conclude validity._

“Sorry to disappoint you, Sherlock. You’re dead and a piece of me is dead, too. There is no more data to be collected. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” John’s apologies became less for the fact he can’t provide the ghost with what he wants and more for the complete and utter failure John has become in his absence. Tears roll down John’s stubbly cheeks, sinking into the wool of his jumper.

_Really, John, stop it. You’ve become quite dull._

“Right, right,” John said, hurriedly wiping at his cheeks. “Don’t be dull.”

Because, of all things, John did not want to be dull for Sherlock. Even if he is a ghost.

 _Better_ , said Not-Sherlock, giving John a lopsided grin before standing and walking to the back bedroom, leaving John to his thoughts.


	12. Chapter 12

Sherlock sat awkwardly on Molly’s lounge, tapping every seventeenth note to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 on his left knee and every fourteenth note to Mozart’s Requiem on his right. This keeps him marginally distracted from the clocks and his watch, but No. 3 had less notes and he’d still had another nineteen stanzas of Requiem when his left hand stilled. He stole a look at his watch, inhaling sharply to clear his muddled thoughts.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft warned from his perch in the kitchen area.

Sherlock didn’t give Mycroft a glance, instead beginning his symphonies all over again. Molly was unusually quiet, sitting at the other end of the couch from Sherlock. Lestrade was sitting across from Mycroft, fidgeting with the tie on his trench coat, half-starting sentences but closing his mouth before he said a word.

“Lestrade, if you insist on opening and closing your mouth like a fish, please do it elsewhere.” Sherlock’s left foot began tapping out Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 en totale, just to fill the spaces between his hands’ work.

“Well, I was gonna ask if you wanted me to go with you to 221B, but now I’m thinking it might be okay if John kills you,” Lestrade said, only half joking. His hands stilled on the beige tie, though, and he shuts his mouth for good.

“No, I’ll be fine. It’ll be fine,” Sherlock said, more to himself than to Lestrade. He looked at his watch again, scowling.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft warned again, giving him a look. Sherlock looked at him then, shooting daggers from his bright eyes.

“Molly, do you have tea that isn’t akin to tepid dishwater?” Sherlock turned and surprised her with his question.

“Uh, I don’t have any tea other than what you’ve been served –.”

“Coffee?” he asked, interrupting her.

“Erm, no, Sherlock, I don’t have anyt-.”

“What he’s asking, Dr. Hooper, is do you have anything a bit stronger?” Mycroft interjected.

“Oh, yes. I have scotch or wine, which do you -.”

“The scotch and a tumbler, then. Do hurry, Molly.” Sherlock turned away from her and stared into the glass of the coffee table, shifting a bit when Molly stands to do as he asks.

“Sherlock, are you sure you don’t want anyone to go with you?” Lestrade asked quietly, and the concern laced in his words made Sherlock cringe.

“Yes, quite.”

“Fine. Well, when you’ve finished your drink we’d better be off. Mrs. Hudson said five o’clock and it’s quarter till now. Do you want a ri-.”

“No, taxi will be fine,” Sherlock quipped, willing Lestrade to stop speaking. He took the tumbler and bottle from Molly, filling it halfway and downing it in one go, wincing at the burn. He looked at the label and is surprised to see it’s vintage, thirty years old, and top shelf.

“It was my dad’s,” Molly explained, sitting back down in the sofa.

Sherlock said nothing but poured himself another glass, drinking only half this time. He tried to focus on the burn and not the _click click click click_ of the analog clock over his head, failing desperately.

It’d been four hours in Molly’s flat, longer than Sherlock thought necessary. He’d said goodbye to Mrs. Hudson with a hug and showered. He’d successfully but annoyingly evaded Lestrade’s questions, and annoyingly but successfully endured Mycroft’s presence. Molly had turned on the telly, but after Sherlock’s scoffs became shouts at it, she’d turned it off again. Sherlock had never felt the time drag so slowly by in his life, he’s sure. Not even the flight to Cardiff had been this trying. He had absolutely nothing to divert his attention from the coming events. Half of him didn’t even want a distraction, and that’s what scared Sherlock the most.

For the three years he’s been gone, Sherlock didn’t allow himself to think about coming home. The work was ahead of him, not behind. Even when one particularly slippery henchman had lead Sherlock straight back to London, while he was here Sherlock didn’t think of anything other than killing him. It was something Sherlock had given up hope for. Avidly avoiding a thought process was not an easy habit to break, even now without anything to impede him. Especially now without anything to impede him. Sherlock groaned quietly and closed his eyes, only to snap them back open again immediately. He’d forgotten what happens when he closes his eyes. When Sherlock closed his eyes, John floated there in the photons remaining behind his eyelids. John was all Sherlock could see anymore, and he hated it. Sherlock had never been one for sentiment. Sociopaths by definition were never ones for sentiment. But John. _John._

Sherlock finished off his second glass of scotch, pouring a third but not drinking yet.

John had wriggled his way through a crack in Sherlock’s not-inconsiderable armor, nestling somewhere above his stomach but below his left lung. _My heart_ , thought Sherlock with a scoff. So disgusting, that metaphorical organ. _Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side_. That’s what Mycroft had been telling him since they were school children. Well, if that was true, then Sherlock was losing, badly. John was everything he needed and nothing he ever wanted all wrapped into one broken package. John was the reason he had forced himself off that roof. John was the reason behind every one of his actions since the fall. John was everything. When he closed his eyes, Sherlock could see the lines carved into the older man’s face by time and stress. When he would allow himself some sleep Sherlock could hear John’s voice just as he passed that barrier between consciousness and ether; could feel John’s breath on his face as he drifted in between.

It was unacceptable, intolerable. Sherlock Holmes did not feel this way. Except about John. The second day they’d known each other, Dr. John Watson had killed a man for him. He’d pulled out a gun and shot a man because Sherlock was in danger. He’d risked possible jail time for a man he’d met the day before. And John had shown his courage and loyalty in excess since then. He’d constantly put himself in harm’s way for the sake of the consulting detective, and Sherlock had never been more receptive to another human being than when he was with John. Being with John set something in Sherlock alight: something Sherlock had no idea how to counteract.

Sherlock harrumphed, downed the dregs of the tumbler, handed it to Molly and stood abruptly. He turned to Lestrade, who hadn’t taken his eyes off him as he sat in his reverie on the sofa.

“Do not come near 221B until I text, I don’t want anyone interfering,” Sherlock said to Lestrade, who nodded. At ‘interfering,’ however, Sherlock looked pointedly at his brother before he donned his coat and swaggered out the door. He stoods just past the threshold for a moment, breathing the chilly London air in deeply, trying to clear his head from the scotch.

“Sherlock?” Molly’s small voice came from behind him and he stiffened in his place. “Try not to be… Um, just try to be compassionate. He hasn’t seen you for three years and he’s so broken. Be gentle.” Sherlock’s shoulders hunched as she spoke, tension forcing its way back into his muscles.

“Yes, thank you,” he clipped, but the bite wasn't in his words. He heard the door shut behind him but started when he feels Molly’s small hand on his arm. He turned his face to her. She just stood there for a moment, hand on his arm, before she pulled him fully around to face her and wrapped her thin arms around his middle. Sherlock didn’t react at all, but that didn’t deter Molly. Finally and slowly, Sherlock wrapped one arm around her, squeezing once before detaching himself completely.

“It’s good to have you home, Sherlock,” she said, and gave him a peck on the cheek before returning to her flat.

Sherlock walked out to the street, flagging down a cab and clambering inside. His cheeks were rd, but if he’s honest it’s not just from the cold and scotch.

“221B Baker Street,” Sherlock instructed the cabbie. _Home_.

It took what Sherlock is sure is an eternity to make it across London to Westminster and Baker Street. He threw too much money at the cabbie, ignoring the twinge he feels in his gut when he stepped foot on the cement across the street from the black door. He didn’t turn round, just stood there breathing carefully in and out. He ran through every step he took to bring him here. Every person he killed, every lie he strangled the life out of, every truth it put in its place. With every single memory that flashed across his mind, John was there to take it and put it back in its room in Sherlock’s palace. John was the palace guard, the palace librarian, the palace groundskeeper. Sherlock had entire rooms dedicated to John, but nothing lent more sanity and reason to his thought processes than having his image there to hand him the memory he was trying to access. Sherlock didn’t remember the first time John’s image has appeared, but he didn’t want him to leave.

Sherlock turned on his heel, having run through all the memories he hadn’t deleted. He looked up to the second floor, finding he was disappointed to see there wasn’t a light on. He could see Mrs. Hudson’s sitting room light from his vantage point; knew she’s in there making tea and watching telly if only to distract herself from what was going to happen in the flat upstairs. Sherlock wished he could phone her and tell her that it will be alright, but he wasn't sure it will be so he didn’t. He shifted his gaze up and let it settle on his own sitting room window.

He breathed deeply once more before crossing the street, hands tucked deeply into his trouser pockets, head ducked against a nonexistent wind. He’d reached the door and pulled out a long-since-used key, turned the Yale lock quickly with long-since-used muscle memory. He stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, though, feeling a wave of unwanted nostalgia sweep over him.

 _That’s the last time I drink on an empty stomach_ , he thought, knowing full well it wasn't true. Sherlock had an amazing affinity for repeating his mistakes. He grunted once, peeling off his coat and draping it over the banister. He nodded sharply at the picture it creates: familiar and right. He couldn’t count how many times John had scolded him for leaving it there and not hanging it up properly on a hook. Mrs. Hudson would come out and hang it up for him just like every time he’d done it before.

Sherlock took the first seven steps up to the landing slowly, careful to step on every spot that creaks. He didn’t want to surprise John any more than he’s going to already. He shook his head once, disbelieving of his own precautions. That should be evidence enough that he’d changed around John.

 _Compassion_ , that’s what Molly said for him to have. Sherlock thought he could manage it, for John. For John.

Going only a little slower than before Sherlock took the next ten stairs and four paces to the flat door, happy to see it open. Not once in the entire time they’d lived there had the door been shut for more than a few hours. A smile ghosted Sherlock’s lips, hope flickering deep in his chest. _Maybe John’s not so changed_ , he thought. _Maybe he won’t break completely_. Sherlock ignored the other end of the spectrum, the rational end that says John might be more changed than Sherlock was ready to accept, more broken than he could handle.

Sherlock’s bare hands touched the surface of the wood, the roughness of the paint. He took note of the scuffs at the bottom from John’s new cane, his face souring at the thought. _I thought I’d fixed that, John._

One step.

Two.

Three. 

Sherlock’s heart was pounding in his chest. Blond hair peeked out over the upholstered armchair, unkempt and unbrushed. Over his heartbeat he could barely make out John’s breathing, deep and labored with sleep. Sherlock marveled at his luck. He used to watch John sleep all the time, but seeing him now was new. Sherlock blinked away damnable tears and steps farther into the flat, toward the now-stark desk. He kept that blond head in his sight, moving until he can see John completely. He was asleep in the chair, right leg spread out in front of him, cane resting against the side table. Sherlock’s breathe caught in his throat.

Mycroft had told Sherlock that John was broken, unwell, but Sherlock had taken it with a grain of salt. John was strong, a soldier, a doctor.

The John Watson before Sherlock now was not any of those things. Sherlock could see evidence of tears and lack of sleep. A dark shadow of beard grew on the older man’s chin. His hair stood in all directions like he’d repeatedly run his hands through it and not combed it. Dark circles scarred his under-eyes. His hands were cracked and dry from bad nutrition, and he’d dropped at least two stone. Sherlock’s heart brokeat the sight of him. His already befuddled and buzzed mind swired with guilt and regret. He needed to sit. So he did.

Sherlock sank into the well-used green leatherette arm chair across from John. His movement was nearly silent, but John still jerks in his sleep. Sherlock stiffened, waiting for the dark blue eyes to open and spot him. They didn’t.

Sherlock relaxed into the chair, breathed shallowly and slowly, willing his heart to stop pounding. His hands steepled and he examined the man before him. 

_Oh, John, what have I done to you?_ Sherlock’s mind was wracked with guilt, searching for a way out, searching for ways to fix this, fix his mistake, fix his doctor. Sherlock counted John’s breaths, in and out in and out in and out. He lost himself in the old smell of 221B, in the familiar ambience of the little flat.

John slowly began to rouse from his sleep, Sherlock saw it in his breathing changes and eye movement behind his thin lids. Finally, after three years, Sherlock was face to face, eye to eye with John. He expected outrage, pain, shouts, something.

“Oh, come back out, have you?” John said. Sherlock was completely dumbfounded. Struck silent. His mind screeched to a halt, having trouble digesting John’s words. His eyes widened and his breath shallowed to near-nothing.

“Hm, what time is it?” asked John, who straightened in his chair and grimaced when his right leg was jostled.

Sherlock didn’t have words, only stared blankly at the man before him.

“Right, right,” John said vaguely, standing to peer at the clock. “God, I was asleep for hours.”

Sherlock stared at him from the chair, his mind slowly grinding back into motion. He cleared his throat, grasping for something to ground him. It felt to Sherlock as if he’d lost himself in a nightmare.

“John,” he said once, hating how small and raspy his voice was.

John grabbed his cane and went to the kettle, not even looking back at him. Sherlock’s chest burned with hatred for the damnable thing.

“John,” Sherlock said again, louder this time. John still did not turn.

_What is wrong with him? Am I the one who’s overreacting? What is going on? Has he gone deaf and blind? Can’t he see me? Can’t he hear me? He shows none of the signs of blindness or deafness, seems to have no trouble communicating. What am I doing wrong? What am I not doing at all? What is going on here?_

Sherlock’s mind snapped back to its full speed, flitting from one possibility to the other, not resting anywhere. His eyes, however, were resting on John’s back as he fixed himself tea. Sherlock watched the movement of the older man’s muscles under the thinck jumper, noted the tension across his shoulders from lack of sleep and stress. He could see the grey in John’s hair had become more prominent. Stress. Stress he caused. Stress he inflicted.

A strange and altogether unfamiliar wetness ran down Sherlock’s face, pulling his focus to the small droplet as it treks down his cheek and falls off his chin.

 _Sentiment_ , he thought, ignoring the tears and returning to analyzing John’s movements. _Limp more pronounced than when I met him, tremor worse than ever and constant in left and right hands, oh god oh god oh god, what have I done, what can I do, what is happening, what what what…_

John shuffled back to the sitting room with a cup of tea, sitting heavily. He set the cup and saucer on the side table, picking up the remote to the telly. 

“Want to watch crap telly?” He asked in a way that told Sherlock he doesn’t expect an answer. The unnatural light from the television made John’s face long and drawn out, made the lines in his face canyons and craters. It was too much for Sherlock and he stopped trying to hold in his tears.

John shot him a quick glance, noting the tears. He seemed unaffected.

“Thought that was my job, mate,” he said, and reached for his cup of tea. Sherlock watched John watching telly, just like old times but not. Sherlock realized the difference now is that their respective personal baggage had swallowed them whole and threatened to drown them both. They’re both broken now, more broken than before, and for the life of him Sherlock couldn’t find a way out of the mess he felt he created. He wept silently and watched John stare blankly at the wall, ignoring the telly and retreating to the recesses of himself.

_Oh, John, what are we now?_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is also from Sherlock's point of view, just to clarify.

Sherlock watched John for hours, not moving more than an inch. He inspected every new crease and every deepened wrinkle in the doctor’s face and hands, catalogued the newest strains in the older man’s muscles. John got up once to fill his tea cup and once to go to the loo, but other than that he simply sat and watched telly. Sherlock’s tears tapered off until a comfortable and unfamiliar numbness settled over him. His mind moved so fast it was nearly silent and that unsettled him enough to bring him some sense of grounding. He felt like he’d lost something vital. Seeing John like this was breaking him apart. John was supposed to be the strong one, the sane one, the one of the two that was always and completely down-to-earth.

Sherlock was at a complete loss and it angers him. It made him angry that John has lost himself; angry that he was unable to fix it; even angrier that he was unable to understand it. His hands balled into fists under his chin, shaking slightly with the effort to keep still. It was enraging, sitting there and seeing his stronghold, his touchstone, falling to pieces. Sherlock almost left, but that thought was strangled out of his mind when he thought of letting John out of his sight. The fight went out of him, then, as he realized his folly.

_Stupid, really. I am here and I’m not leaving._

The time’d reached near half one when John finally turned off the television. He stood and Sherlock could almost hear the creaks and stretches of his less-than-lenient muscles. His heart broke a little more with each pop and click John’s body made, and it takes all he had not to flinch. 

_Just more evidence of the damage I’ve done_ , Sherlock thought with ire. He put his hands down, rubbing some life back into his numb thighs. He’d been sitting in one position for what seemed like days. John glanced at him with a wry smirk and Sherlock’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“Time for the nightly ritual, then. You going haunt as always, or am I going to be alone tonight?” John asked, turning toward the kitchen. Sherlock’s mouth turned down in a deep grimace when John said _alone_. Sherlock was not very good at picking things like this up in conversation, but even he could hear that John put every ounce of sorrow he’d ever possessed into the two syllables. When he said _alone_ , he meant unequivocally desperate for something he knew he’ll not get. When he said _alone_ , Sherlock could hear the roaring undercurrent of complex and thorough sadness, barely covered up by his banter-like tone. When John said _alone_ , Sherlock knew he meant _without you_.

Sherlock couldn’t speak for fear of letting loose the tidal wave of emotions in his brain that he knew would sweep them both up and crush them. He merely stood, noting a similar stiffness in his own actions, and followed John into the kitchen.

“Haunt it is, then.” John said, sitting heavily in a kitchen chair.

Sherlock was struck still when he saw the Browning on the scarred dining room table. For the second time that day his mind ground and screeched to a halt, and he was left grasping for straws at John’s reasoning.

“John,” Sherlock said again, opening and closing his mouth not unlike he’d seen Lestrade do earlier. He audibly snapped his mouth shut, staring at the gun.

John paid him no nevermind, staring straight across at the wall. Sherlock shifted from foot to foot, looking from the gun to John’s face and back.

“John,” he said again, louder. John looked toward Sherlock but not at his face.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“Contemplating the complexities of Newtonian truncated algorithms,” quipped John with a sly grin. Sherlock was horrified into silence.

“Yeah, thought you’d say that,” mumbled John, shifting in the uncomfortable chair.

“John,” said Sherlock again, pleading with his eyes, trying desperately to understand the situation in front of him. “What are you doing?”

“You know full well, you’ve watched me enough times.”

Sherlock’s frown took on gigantic proportions at that.

“What are you talking about, John. What is going on? Why are you like this? What’s happening, just tell me? I’ve sat there for hours waiting for you to react to me and you haven’t done a bloody damn thing. What. Is. Going. On?” Sherlock enunciated, gritting his teeth against the undirected rage swelling up in his chest.

John just stared ahead, unblinking and unhearing. It seemed like another hour had passed before he spoke.

“I can’t do this without you anymore.” John was so quiet Sherlock had to run his words through his head again to make sure he heard correctly. He took just as long to answer as John took to reply.

“You don’t have to.”

John scoffed out a laugh, reaching for his cane.

“If you’re going to be so bloody chatty, I’m going to throw it in anyway. Good night,” he said, heading out the side door for the staircase. Sherlock’s mouth fell open as he watched the older man go.

He waited for the click of John’s latch before he scrambled for the gun, rushing to the hiding spot in his room, just under the lower left bedpost of his king sized. He jimmied the wooden panel up, wiped away the dust as it scurried away from the little cubby-hole. He unloaded and dismantled the Browning before placing it atop the small Victorian-style wooden box that held his emergency supply of cocaine. Sherlock paused for a moment to look at the small space before he replaced the floorboard and stood. Such a small space filled with such destructive things. He let out a pent up sigh that was equal parts frustration, relief, and helplessness.

He took a cursory glance at his room before walking back out to the kitchen to grab the broom. The dust layer in the room wasn’t atrocious but if John went looking for the gun, the dirt displacement would be enough to give away the hiding spot away.

 _Dust is eloquent_ , Sherlock remembered. That day seemed so long ago, so far away.

After he swept the floor, Sherlock returned the broom to its proper place and stood with his hands on his hips in the hallway, looking up to John’s closed door. He debated whether or not to call on Mrs. Hudson, but two o’ clock in the morning was an indecent time. His thoughts surprised him, he knew that before John he wouldn’t have cared whether or not she was sleeping. Sherlock’s brows knitted together in helplessness. Sherlock pulled his phone out of his pocket and shot off a text:

**Why weren’t you more specific when you informed me of John’s… state?**

**-SH**

It only took a second for his brother to reply:

IT WOULD HAVE DISTRACTED YOU FROM YOUR COURSE.

-M

Sherlock huffed in anger, entertaining the image of dropping the phone down the toilet.

**I don’t know what to do.**

**-SH**

WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE MATTER, BROTHER DEAR? HAS HE TRIED STRANGLING YOU YET?

-M

Sherlock argued with himself over telling Mycroft anything, but in the end he knew he needed someone else to know.

**He didn’t do anything. It’s like he doesn’t see me. He looked at me, even spoke to me, but not once did he really notice me. It’s like he doesn’t really know I’m standing in front of him after three years of being dead.**

**-SH**

DID YOU REITERATE YOUR PRESENCE?

-M

**I sat and watching bloody Jeremy Kyle with him for five hours, sat and stared at him, talked to him. And then he goes and sits at the dining room table with his Browning. I ask him what he’s doing and he laughs and says ‘you know full well, you’ve watched me enough times.’ What did he mean, Mycroft? Has he gone insane?**

**-SH**

I’LL LOOK INTO IT.

-M

Sherlock harrumphed, running a pale hand through his hair and down his face. He cast another longing glance up the darkened stairway before walking to the sitting room and plopping down on the familiar sofa. A thin layer of dust puffed over him and he coughed, waving it away.

_Couch not sit upon but dusted, however infrequently, probably Mrs. Hudson when it gets too unbearable. Sitting room cleared of case files and other paraphernalia, all but the bare and essential minimum of my things cleaned semi-regularly and unmoved since last I saw them. My armchair unmoved and cared for. Skull still on the mantle, jackknife used as post-spear lying next to it. Headphones still in place on cow skull. Small, nearly undetectable camera underneath lip of French door-jamb of partition to kitchen: Mycroft keeping tabs._

Sherlock swiveled his head on the plush arm toward the other side of the room.

_Another small and nearly undetectable audio recorder placed in third-left bullet-hole in wall plaster. Clever, Mycroft. Plaster and ripped wallpaper not replaced or even touched, other than the bug. Yellow spray paint a bit sun-faded but otherwise intact._

Sherlock could see John everywhere, but simultaneously he could see himself everywhere. His things had not been touched, his furniture taken care of and his property-damage kept in place. Sherlock could see from his perch where the jackknife dug into the wooden mantelpiece over and over again. It would have been inexpensive to replace the mantle; it was wooden and small. And the spray-painted smiley face remained, as well. Mrs. Hudson put up such a fit when she saw what he’d done, but not even when she’d renovated the foyer or replaced the blown-in windows had she fixed the wallpaper.

 _Sentiment_ , thought Sherlock, but this time there was no rough edge to the thought. He was struck by how much he truly missed this charming little flat, how much he’s missed the pure ambience of clutter and smallness. Even without the clutter, there was a certain allure to the plush flat. Sherlock thought back on every good day, every bad day, every in-between day he’d ever had in this flat. He ran through the entire hallway he’d dedicated in his mind palace for this place, John running gaily alongside him. They went from room to room, analyzing every bit of information that Sherlock had stored, laughing and scowling and comforting each other. A regret-laced emotion clouded Sherlock’s mind palace skies, filling up the horizon till all Sherlock could call to the forefront is: _The only time I’ll ever see John happy and healthy again is here._

He shut his eyes to the world around him and let the feeling of dread gulp him down while laughing in his mind with his unbroken doctor.


	14. Chapter 14

John toed off his shoes by his bedside and crawled underneath the heavy quilt, pulling his knees up to his chest.

“Damn chatty bastard,” he thought aloud. “Weird that today of all days he decided to be a bother about it.” John considered this a bit but ended up dismissing the encounter in the kitchen as simply more insanity crammed into his head.

He cursed Sherlock his ability to ‘delete’ things from his memory. John wasn't wired that way and he wished he were. He wished he could delete all of the things that haunt him; all of the things that makes him weak simply by replaying over and over in his head. Like his tour in Afghanistan. He wished he could delete the feeling of the thick sand beneath his thick boots, the harsh winds chapping his harsh cheeks beneath his harsh safety glasses. He wished he could delete the sweat beading on his brow and blood congealing on his forearms as he’s wrist-deep in a fallen comrade’s torso. He wished he could forget the bone deep guilt of letting another man die, of letting another soldier go home in a pine box. He especially wished he could forget the agony of the bullet tearing through muscle and bone, and every echo he’d felt in his shoulder since then.

John rolled his shoulder stiffly against the mattress and squeezed his right hand tightly, letting his fingernails carve half-moon shapes into his palm.

 _No_ , John thought. _I don’t want to forget those things. Those things led me here. Those things led me back to London and Baker Street, to Sherlock._

_SherlockSherlockSherlock._

John rolled onto his back and pondered the ceiling, following the paint lines from left to right and down. He flexed his right hand, bringing it to his chest to rest. It shook violently most of the time now, and John thought that maybe that was why he’d begun to rely so heavily on the cane, not just the limp. If he’d got the cane in his hand he didn’t have to watch the shake and quiver of his once-steady fingers. If he’d got the cane he didn’t have to worry so much about how his body is steadily betraying him. John rolled that word around in his mouth.

“Betrayal.”

 _Hm_ , he thought. _That’s not right. Betrayal makes a person think there’s a third party, but there’s only me._

His breath caught in his throat but he swallowed the grief down hard.

_Only me._

* * * * * * * * * *

It took a while, like it always did, but John fell into a semi-sleep, something like a twilight state. He thought he heard footsteps downstairs but couldn’t seem to rouse enough suspicion to get up and see who was mucking about. Even the soldier in him stayed quiet.

John found that when he slept too much during the day he couldn’t fully fall to sleep at night, and that night was no different. John’d slept more in the last twenty-four hours than he had in the last week and it burned him from the inside out.

In his twilight-state, John felt hands on his chest, in his hair, down his back. Feather-light touches of soft skin to his face, hands, neck, lips. He could feel the silk of hair he knew was black as sin running through his fingers. Without opening his eyes once he let his dream-state Sherlock explore his body; kiss his face, his lips. That, there, was heaven for John.

That, there, was also partly why John never raised the L9A1 to his temple. If John could hallucinate Sherlock, could smell him everywhere, could hear his heavy-but-not footsteps in the hall and on the stairs and down the corridors, could see Sherlock in every face he spots no matter their differences, could feel him touching his body, could sense him parading through his mind… If John could do all those things while he was living he knew he’d never get to do those things if he were dead. John’s luck ran out when Sherlock jumped.

John twitched in his sleep, a slight furrow forming on his wrinkled brow. His sleepy, muddled mind pushed the fear and memories far from the small area John had resorted to in his cranium. John wondered how Sherlock ever got on with such room inside his mind. John, in all the open spaces his consciousness had occupied, felt strangled and claustrophobic, never knowing what was going to pop out of the shadows and corners. So he had built walls, shutting everything out that wasn’t imminent and present. The walls were large, five sandbags thick and twenty sandbags high. _What else would a soldier build walls with?_ They were impenetrable, holding out all the comments and pities and sympathies made at and after the funeral; holding out every insult and accusation spat from a media-person’s mouth; holding out every sideways glance at Tesco he’d receive the following months. But those walls didn’t just hold things out. 

No, for John they also created a new place that held everything he needed. He’d built shelves into the walls, and they held everything from names in the form of thick and dusty tomes, to memories of house and home in the form of stacks of photos. They proved easy to access, especially when alone and undistracted, and John was proud of his little ramshackle mind-bunker. Surely, it was not nearly as grand and expansive and inclusive as Sherlock’s supposed mind-palace, but it was something John’d created from nothing but grief and loneliness.

John was especially proud of the entire wall he’d dedicated to the last half-decade. The wall was three sandbags taller than the others, and two sandbags thicker. It needed to be, to hold the expanse of data he’d put there. He’d got a whole shelf dedicated to every color he’d seen in Sherlock’s eyes, from yellow to deep violet to bright and clear near-white. He’d got another shelf holding every smile Sherlock sent him, another split between the insults and compliments Sherlock ever graced him with. He’d pinned up his favorite memories in the form of magazine and newspaper clippings. He’d crammed boxes full of his own minor deductions about Sherlock’s facial features as he’d spoken to him, including every lapse of pure emotion he could remember catching Sherlock miss before pulling on that infuriating and gorgeous façade he wore. There’s a box he’d marked “ANGER” that’s considerably larger than the other three marked respectively “JOY,” “SADNESS,” and “SURPRISE,” and they were all lined up underneath the lowest rack. Out of all the people he’d met, John has never met a man quite so angry as Sherlock Holmes.

In his dream state John went and opened the ANGER box and sifted through the top papers. He found what he was looking for halfway down. A packet of stills of Sherlock’s face he’d immortalized and filed away as photographs. He opened the case file, something he couldn’t resist putting them in, and looked at the first of the pictures. 

It was of the day Sherlock had thrown that American man out the window, only to drag him back upstairs and do it again. John had never been so frightened of the younger man as he had been then, but he’d also never been so energized. Sherlock’s full rage was expelled upon that brash and moronic American and John had loved it, had loved Sherlock for it.

John replaced the folder in the box and placed the lid back on it, pushing it back to align with the others. He pushed to his feet in his mind bunker and placed his hands on his hips, rocking back and forth on his heels.

John didn’t have the tremors or limp here and he was grateful for it because they’d make him clumsy and he’d probably put something out of place and lose it. That would be unacceptable. That would be unthinkable. He’d worked for upwards of two and a half years on his eight-by-ten bunker and not one thing could go out of place or John would lose his mind completely. 

A familiar panic gripped the doctor, winding its way round and round his chest cavity till his eyes were squeezed shut and he was clawing at his clothes for release from the pressure. He sank to his knees in his bunker but as soon as he was down he knew he’d slipped past the sandbagged walls and out into a nightmare. Gritty and large-particled sand crunched under his palms and knees. The roaring of his own blood in his ears was replaced by the roaring of the Chinooks above and the grumbling of the Humvees beside him. John recognized the nightmare for what it was: a flashback. The same flashback every time, the day he got shot by an Afghan man thirty metres away and at about two o’clock from his position. John knew the role he had to play out in order for him to be released from this hot and panicked Hell, so he grappled for the butt of the M16 he knew was slung across his back. He gripped the trigger guard tightly, not ready to fire but preparing.

John surged to a crouching run toward the nearest Humvee, reaching for the radio-control on the front of his body armor, shouting orders to the unit through the headpiece laced into his helmet. Like every time since the actual event, John found that his unit had broken formation and was lost throughout the chaos by hearing the random and pained shouts from the earpiece. He was alone surrounded by comrades who are being picked off one by one by a group of Pashtun aggressors that had not been on the icom three minutes before. It was supposed to be a routine patrol and for the last four weeks there hadn’t been so much as a skirmish. John knew his part so he launched out from behind the Humvee in search of the men he can hear screaming in pain, but sixteen paces from the truck he was blasted backward by a bullet that teared through his shoulder less than an inch above his heart.

John knew it’s a memory but that didn’t stop him from screaming out into the desert outside FOB Bastion, from screaming out into his bedroom in Westminster, London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this, thank you! Thank you for sticking with me through the serious time gaps and sketchy continuity. Review this for me, I need the criticism! Thank you all again, and if you'd rather read this on fanfiction.net it's there as well, under the penname KatyLamphere. Lots more to come sooner than this, I promise.


	15. Chapter 15

Sherlock was roused from his reverie quite suddenly and rudely by an atrocious racket coming from the beyond the stairwell. His mind shifted automatically from annoyed to worried when he realized what the caterwauling was.

“John,” he said unnecessarily, jumping from the sofa and rushing to the foot of the stairs. The doctor’s yells subsided just as Sherlock stepped up to the third step so he paused to listen, not daring to breathe for he might miss something. He could hear quiet and pained groans coming from the room at the top of the stairs but nothing like the devastating wails that had interrupted his thoughts. Sherlock remembered that John never wanted to acknowledge his nightmares (and Sherlock was always relieved, never wanting to acknowledge them himself) so he resolved to go back downstairs and simply listen. If the yells began again he promised to see that John woke up.

He felt impotent, useless. John wasn’t the man now that he was before and it was eating him up. Sherlock looked at the clock in the kitchen, frown lines deepening when he saw that it was near six o’clock. He fumbled in his pockets for his phone before finding it wedged in the sofa cushions. Clicking the screen to light he was disappointed that there were no messages to alleviate some of the stress of being alone in the flat. Because he was alone. John wasn’t here, certainly. John had left and a shell replaced him.

Sherlock groaned in exasperation, ruffling in his hair violently. He was bereft, frustrated, clueless, and completely and irrevocably angry. He was angry at himself, angry with John, angry with Mycroft and Lestrade and Molly and everyone else who’d not fixed this problem for him. Sherlock didn’t do feelings. He may have been driven by his passions but they were wholly foreign to him. He didn’t know how to deal with his own emotions so how was he expected to deal with John’s as well? Especially when John’s seemed so much more volatile and explosive? Sherlock recognized the signs and symptoms of John’s grief, could list off the facts like listing off produce. Sherlock saw and observed but could not understand.

And that’s what bothered him most. He didn’t understand, couldn’t understand, had no ability to understand what demon had possessed John. Sherlock stilled, realizing that the supposed demon hadn’t just possessed John, but it’d possessed both of them; leaked from one person into the next, even across three years and two continents.

Listening more intently to the room upstairs even as he paced the length of the sitting room, Sherlock thought. He looked longingly at his Stradivarius but shook his head sharply. John needed his rest.

That was another thing that bothered Sherlock. He’d begun to care about John. It seemed like he was tethered to the older man, held by some sort of gravity. _No, perhaps not gravity._ John was polar to Sherlock. _Symmetry_. That’s what held the two of them together.

Sherlock heard a sharp intake of breath and, realizing it was himself, exhaled just as sharply in something that could have been construed as a laugh. The anger had subsided, leaving Sherlock with clarity and peace he hadn’t felt since the cocaine. It’s hateful but he embraced it.

“Tethered by symmetry and bound by _love_ ,” Sherlock barely breathed the word for he’s afraid it might shatter the world around him. _I love him, John, the man who shaped me, and I him; the man who kills for me, the man who laughs with me, the man who is my keeper and ballast and buoy and touchstone and mirror. John Watson, the man whom Sherlock Holmes chose to love._

The muscles around Sherlock’s mouth pulled and twisted his cupid bow lips into something that was simultaneously a grimace and grin. The newfound peace was fading but the clarity remains. He trekked to the armchair, not so much sitting as plopping down into it. Introspection was exhausting. He steepled his hands in front of him, looking toward the flat door and the stairwell just beyond it.

“Dear God, what have we got ourselves into?” Sherlock breathed. After a minute of just staring at the stairs, Sherlock straightened and reached for his phone again.

**I need you here tomorrow, tea time. Bring the case you’ve got on, I need the distraction.**

**-SH**

_Alright?_

_-D.I. Lestrade, New Scotland Yard, London_

**Yes, quite. The case, all files and evidence, don’t be stingy. Teatime, tomorrow.**

**-SH**

_Yes, fine. I should’ve known you’d want to be right back at it. Tomorrow, then._

_ -D.I. Lestrade, New Scotland Yard, London _

**Good.**

**-SH**

Sherlock’s nerves eased slightly during the conversation. He wasn’t sure Lestrade would have let him back, especially considering the inquiry the DI had to go through just after Sherlock ‘died.’ Sherlock suspected Mycroft had something to do with Lestrade’s relatively slight reprimand; the DI only suffered a two-month unpaid suspension during the inquiry., and a restriction upon which cases he could take and which he'd have to pass to the new senior homicide inspector, Dimmock. Donovan and Anderson suffered somewhat worse: they were both subjected to a rigorous inquiry, resulting in their respective demotions and the surfacing of their affair which ultimately led to Anderson’s divorce. Sherlock smiled at the thought of their discomfort, their loss. They may have only done what their little tiny brains thought was logical, but Sherlock still relished their pain.

A noise on the stair drew Sherlock’s complete attention and he watched as John stumbled down the steps and toward the loo. Sherlock took a deep breath, steeling himself for the coming interactions. _Or lack thereof_ , he thought bitterly. The loo door creaked as it opened and John stumbled out into the kitchen, flicking light switches as he went. Sherlock watched the tightness in the doctor’s shoulders, the taut trapezius muscles and deltoids. Sherlock could see the knots and strains in them from where he sat. He was surprised to find that he wanted to rub them away, make John’s pain disappear under his hands. Sherlock’s face flushed and he stood to distract himself from his thoughts. He walked the six steps to the doorway into the kitchen and leaned against the door jamb, shoving his hands in his rumpled pockets.

“Oh, joy,” John said, only glancing at Sherlock for a millisecond before continuing his preparation of tea. “Six o’clock and you’re already following me about.”

Sherlock hummed noncommittally, ducking his head but not taking his eyes from John. John’s flippancy to his presence upset Sherlock, made him uneasy. He wished he could shake John, shake him until he saw him, shake him until he acknowledges him appropriately. Sherlock scoffed silently. _What do I know about appropriate? Maybe this is his way of coping; his way of dealing with the stress. Maybe I mean so little to him he could simply assimilate me back into routine. Maybe I mean so much to him he could assimilate me. Whatever the reason, I deserve so much worse. So much worse…_

So Sherlock watched John go about his daily morning routine, even though he’s screaming inside.


	16. Chapter 16

John eyes his Not-Sherlock as he leans against the jamb. His eyes linger on his half-exposed neck. John imagines beginning at Sherlock’s jawline, kissing and nipping his way down to the dip between his clavicles. A flush creeps up from his neck, covering his scalp in itchy redness. 

_We weren’t like that. We were flatmates. I’m straight. We weren’t like that_. John pours the now-boiled water over the tea strainer and sits with his cup at the table. He stills as his eyes rove the surface.

“Where’s the gun?” John asks, more to himself than the apparition. He looks around on the floor, under the table, on the countertops. He feels strangely divorced from the situation, but that’s how he lives now so John ignores the fuzz.

“It was unnecessary, John, really,” Not-Sherlock clears his throat in discomfit when John’s eyes snap to his in surprise. John isn’t angry, he isn’t anything. He assumes Mrs. Hudson did something with it. _That would explain the footsteps last night… Maybe she called Lestrade. She must have done. Lestrade._

John’s features relax and he sits straighter in the chair. He sips his too-hot tea and stares out the window straight ahead, through the sitting room. The Not-Sherlock is in his periphery, though, and John is attentive. Another flush creeps up his collar as he imagines how soft and pliant his lips would be underneath his own. Would he take power or would he be submissive and shy? Would Sherlock have run away if John had ever made a move? John suspects that he would have. Sherlock wasn’t one for relationships or intimacy. John doesn’t know what he would have done if Sherlock _hadn’t_ run. He admits that he might have been the one running instead.

_It never would have worked, never. We weren’t like that. Flatmates. Friends. I’m straight. Never would have worked._

John grapples with his cane as he stands to go gather his things for a shower. Not-Sherlock moves as he does, always staying the same distance away but following his every move as if they were one thing.

“I think I can do this, thanks,” says John sharply. He catches something like hurt cross the ghosts’ features but it’s gone before he can check again. Something niggles in the back of John’s mind.

Well, he thinks it’s a niggle, but recently it’s been very hard to tell. The sandbag walls he’s erected make good sound-proof walls as well, so the niggle could be screaming and pounding. But all he hears is a mild chiming and that’s easy for John to ignore so he does. He starts toward the stairs shaking his head of all thoughts other than the immediate: _get up the stairs, get clothes from wardrobe, get down the stairs, get to the loo, get clean, get out, get dressed._

John stands before the mirror, wiping the condensation from the hot shower away with a washcloth. He hasn’t really looked at his face lately. He looks at parts. He looks at his jaw when he shaves. He looks at his forehead to judge the growth of his hair. He looks at the bags under his eyes; the grooves in his cheeks; the sallowness of his skin. He never looks into his eyes. He’s afraid of what he’ll find. Grief. Guilt. Sorrow. Even worse, he’s afraid that if he looks he won’t find any of those things, just deep and endless nothings set into his head. He’s afraid if he looks into his eyes he won’t be able to recognize the man looking out. He already feels alien in his body and he doesn’t want the burden of knowing he’s not John Watson anymore, but a shell. A carcass.

John looks to his jaw, studies the stubble he’s let go for three days. He runs his hand over it, trying to decide if he has the motivation to shave it or if he’ll leave it for another day. It’s tough trying to shave. He has to go slowly because of the tremors. He has to be extremely careful. He doesn’t want to be careful. He doesn’t want to spend forty-five minutes shaving. He used to be able to do it in less than ten. 

John’s lips pull into a thin line. _Nope, not today_ , he thinks as he pulls out his toothbrush and paste, cleaning his teeth rigorously. _Not today_. He replaces everything and walks out to the den and sits. Mrs. Hudson will be up with the paper soon, John thinks, even though he’s told her repeatedly he doesn’t read it anymore.

It got too much. He’d catch himself automatically scanning the police blotter for crimes and mysteries. John couldn’t do it anymore, so now there’s a stack of papers against the sidetable, unread. Mrs. Hudson takes them out every week or so, tutting the whole time to herself.

“She’s disappointed in me,” says John, startling Not-Sherlock. That something niggles in the back of John’s mind again but he ignores it just as easily.

“Who is?” Not-Sherlock says as he sits in the green-grey armchair.

“Mrs. Hudson. She thinks I’m being petty,” John looks at the ghost.

“No, she doesn’t,” says the wraith. John scoffs and says no more, not wanting a row with someone who isn’t there. _Now I’ve really gone around the bend._

John looks at Not-Sherlock. Follows the line of buttons from where the top two are undone to where they disappear into the black waistline of his trousers. The shirt is a deep blue, just in between navy and cerulean. It’s rumpled and wrinkled, the sleeves rolled up to Not-Sherlock’s elbows. The fabric is lush, crisp, but it’s disorderly and hangs a bit from Not-Sherlock’s frame. That little niggle becomes a dull thud against the walls of John’s mind-bunker, but it’s still easy to ignore so he does. Not-Sherlock steeples his hands against his chin and watches John watch him.

The movement catches John’s attention and he studies Not-Sherlock’s wrists and elegant hands. Because that’s the only word for them: elegant. They’re long and agile, thin and perfectly proportioned. John appreciates anatomical beauty, he’s a doctor. Sherlock was anatomical beauty incarnate, with his tallness and cheekbones and broody features. John’s blush comes back full force and Not-Sherlock’s head tilts to the side minutely.

The dull thud on the walls of John’s mind-bunker gets more insistent. Instead of sounding like the bass of too-loud music from the floor above, it’s now more like a pounding on the wall from the next room. John works to ignore it. He doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to hear whatever his mind has to tell him.

“I wonder where the paper is,” says John, looking away from Not-Sherlock to the doorway.

Not-Sherlock grunts in something like annoyance but doesn’t weigh in.

“I’ll just turn on the telly, shall I?” says John, not expecting and answer from the ghost in the chair opposite.

John sits and watches some mindless American show about high schoolers and their choir club thingy. He lets it suck him in so he can’t think about how much he would have liked to kiss Sherlock, run his hands up the younger man’s chest and tangle in his fringe, and especially so he can’t think about the louder still knocking on the walls of his bunker.

Quite a while later, after three episodes of pointless teenage drama and quite a lot of songs sung, John’s attention is drawn from the telly to Not-Sherlock who is texting on his phone. John pauses at that, a completely unwelcome nostalgia welling up inside his chest.

“Jesus, I thought it couldn’t get any worse,” says John under his hitching breath.

Not-Sherlock looks up from the screen, his brow piqued at the center in confusion.

“What couldn’t get any worse?”

John laughs and turns back to the telly. His sardonic smile turns into a grimace as the pounding on the walls of his bunker begins to crescendo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read, bookmarked, and kudos'd! If you guys could critique, that would be amazing. I'm still learning and there's no better way to learn than criticism. Let me know all your thoughts and trepidations, they really keep me writing and improving. This story is also on ff.net, under the same title. If you like, my tumblr is sherlockholmesisagreatman.


	17. Chapter 17

Sherlock is watching John watch Sherlock watching John watch Sherlock. It’s unnerving but he doesn’t look away, doesn’t want John to see the shame he’s sure is written all over his face. John’s always been so expressive, his face relaying every emotion and every thought. John was continuously accusing Sherlock of mind-reading but he was just face-reading. John wears his emotions on his face, his heart on his sleeve, and every single death that occurs around or near him on his shoulders. Sherlock is in awe of John, the soldier with a medical degree and taste for danger.

Today, though, John is not that man. John is not John. He is lost and Sherlock is trying desperately to needle his way into the empty expression John now wears as evidence of his mental vacancy.

John settles down at nearly seven to watch something dull on the television. John hasn’t ever done _nothing_ but he’s doing a lot of it now. Sherlock sits across from him for lack of anything else to do. The text from Mycroft comes at half eight, telling him nothing he didn’t already know, and John looks at him like he’s about to fall completely apart. 

“Jesus, I thought it couldn’t get any worse,” he says, his deep breath catching in the back of his throat in a way that hearing it from anyone else in the world would make Sherlock turn and walk away in disgust. It vibrates through Sherlock’s chest like a physical blow, jarring him to the core. He swallows the bile that’s risen up and asks him what couldn’t get any worse? but John laughs hollowly and looks back to the telly. 

The older man’s brow is creased so deeply that Sherlock’s afraid it’s going to cause permanent damage. Sherlock can feel a similar expression crossing his own angular face but does nothing to clear it. Mycroft says John’s therapist is uncertain of John’s mental stability but can take no further action when John remains so ‘stubbornly closed-off’ about exactly what is happening to him. Sherlock isn’t surprised that the therapist doesn’t know anything of what was going on in John’s head. He isn’t surprised that John began seeing her again after the incident. Sherlock isn’t surprised that John’s tremor came back, or that he needs the cane again. 

Sherlock _is_ surprised that John is so very old so very suddenly. He knows it’s been three years; he knows John’s been through something terrible; he knows John isn’t a young man; he knows all of that. But Sherlock is still taken aback. Every creak of John’s bones, every hitch he can see in the lumbar vertebrae, every catch he sees ripple through his deltoids and trapezius muscles rings through him loudly and obtrusively, like church bells on Christmas. It’s disconcerting at the least and heartbreaking at the worst.

Sherlock stands to help John with lunch. And by help he means watch as John works around the range and fridge. Sherlock’s not hungry, not in the least. In fact, he’s a bit nauseated. He supposes it’s due to the strain of seeing John like this. He bites back a grunt of disgust. _Sentiment._

John only looks at Sherlock once, and Sherlock thinks it’s to make sure he knows where he is so he’s certain not to come within five feet of him. John hums as he works. John fiddles with the kettle switch trying to keep it from shutting off automatically. It’s broken but he won’t get rid of it. Sherlock can see the dents where it’s been dropped and the blue light bulb doesn’t work when John finally gets the switch to stay. Sherlock makes a note to have Mrs. Hudson pick up another.

John says nothing outright to Sherlock but mutters under his breath quite a lot. Sherlock catches things like ‘keeps staring right at me,’ and ‘dear God, I’ve gone round the twist,’ and ‘the gun, the gun, the gun, must remember to bring it up to Mrs. Hudson,’ and ‘turn burner off, keep plate steady, come on Watson, you can do this.’ 

Sherlock stands in the corner against the door jamb and says nothing. He doesn’t know where to begin. He wants to shake the man and say ‘John, for God’s sake, I’m right here, damnit, right here, look at me, I’m here I’m home I love you I’m here I’m home I’m home I’m home,’ but doesn’t think it’d be conducive to John’s instability.

Sherlock sees the saucer tip over the edge of the table, watches it teeter past the fulcrum necessary to maintain balance. His taut muscles haven’t really even begun to relax from being alert every minute and Sherlock reaches out to catch the damn thing unthinkingly, not noticing that of all the things that have dulled, John’s reflexes haven’t dulled a bit.

John’s hand collides with Sherlock’s around the falling saucer and there’s a millisecond when Sherlock’s complete attention is focused on the spot where their fingers brush just before the entire state of affairs collapses and John yells and pulls back like he’s been burned. He stands, the kitchen chair toppling over behind him and the saucer falls to the floor and shatters. John’s eyes are wide and frightened, dashing from his hand to Sherlock’s face, to the saucer, and back to his hand. Sherlock stands straight up, schooling his features against the onslaught he’s sure to receive. _This is it_ , he thinks. _The realization. He’ll hit me, I’m sure. Possibly multiple times. Most likely multiple times. I’ll let him. I deserve so much worse, so much worse._

“I -,” John begins. Sherlock sees John teetering past that fulcrum, too, but something completely unexpected happens. Unlike the saucer, which had waved goodbye to that safe point of tipping as it sailed to the floor, John seems to have grabbed it on his way past and hugged it to him for dear life. Sherlock sees the vacancy enter his eyes like a noxious black fog, sees John’s posture relax from springing position, sees John look pointedly away from Sherlock.

Sherlock watches John look down at his hand, the hand that touched Sherlock’s, his right hand, and sees every inch of his thought patterns written plainly across his face. Sherlock’s chest caves in infinitesimally with every assurance John provides himself that it didn’t happen, it wasn’t real, I’m hallucinating. 

Sherlock can see in the little uplift of the left corner of John’s mouth that he’s convincing himself, too. And it tears Sherlock apart. 

Sherlock knows, now.

 _John is sick. John is delusional. John isn’t John. John needs help. John doesn’t believe I’m here, has been hallucinating for some time now. John has been seeing me though I’ve not been here. John is unwell. I can’t fix this, can’t fix_ this _. I’m home now and John can’t see me because he’s already seeing me._

_He can’t see me because he sees me._

Sherlock can’t bear to be in the same place anymore so he leaves. As John rights the chair and reaches for the broom to clean up the porcelain bits of saucer from the lino, Sherlock flees from the kitchen to his room; leaving the door open for fear that John might hear the click of the latch and have to tell himself another lie to keep up his delusion. Sherlock doesn’t want to give him any more kindling for the flame of wrong that’s consumed his doctor.

He sits on the floor, his back against the foot of the bed. Here, with the high footboard, if anyone stands in the doorway they can’t see him. It’s ideal. It’s ideal for privacy in an open house. The only place he can think that would be better would be the wardrobe and he’s far too long-limbed to fit in it. He’s tried.

Sherlock pulls out his phone, clicking it to light and unlocking it as swiftly as his shaking hands will allow. He pulls up his directory and hits Mycroft’s number silently. It doesn’t get through a complete ring before Mycroft’s nasally and self-righteous voice is greeting him with:

“What is it, Sherlock?”

Sherlock finds that all words have fled his mind. Well, not all words. Just the right ones, the ones he needs to explain to Mycroft what needs to be explained. The only words left are:

“John, _my_ John, I don’t know what to do, John, John is – _broken_ , he’s broken and unfixable, humpty dumpty and I have no horses or men, dear God what have I done I don’t know what to _do_ ,” Sherlock’s voice breaks and his breath heaves and his eyes screw shut and Mycroft’s haughtiness is something audible as it leaves him from the other end of the line. His next words are almost comforting when they reach Sherlock.

“Sherlock, start from the beginning.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to Holmes-sweet-Holmes on ff.net for the beta, she's a lifesaver.

John stands for a second after Not-Sherlock disappears down the corridor. Just a second, because his brain snaps to full capacity and he rushes to the sink and grabs a sponge and washing up liquid, scrubbing the basin and adjoining worktops till they gleam. When he’s satisfied that they’ve got not one bit of dust or grime on them, he grabs the industrial strength bleach from the cupboard under the counter and scrubs them again, not caring that his hands go raw and red and throb with every heartbeat. He doesn’t care because it means that he isn’t dreaming, if the throb continues, worsens when he pours more bleach on the worktop, it means he’s alive and awake and doing something productive. 

John’s breathing is labored and his hands are screaming by the time he deems the counters and basin to his standards. He then begins on the linos and dining table, first with the Fairy soap and then with the bleach. He fastidiously scrubs and fastidiously avoids thinking. He forces everything but the burn of his hands and the dirt on the floor. And hour and half’s gone by before he packs away the scrubbers and detergents. 

John thinks about nothing but the steps in front of him as he goes to the bathroom and spreads a calming cream on his now bleeding palms and fingers, thinks of nothing but the steps back out to the sitting room and nothing more than turning on the telly and flipping the channels haphazardly. Not until he settles in with an old episode of Doctor Who does John think about what transpired over breakfast. It wiggles its way into John’s bunker, like the thick and heavy smoke that would accompany an IED explosion. It seeps through the sandbags and infected his space. John’s eyes watched The Doctor run about London with Rose but his mind was running the impossible touch over and over in his head. It was inescapable. It was all-consuming. _It didn’t even happen_ , supplies John’s ever-defiant subconscious. _Didn’t even happen, not really. Couldn’t have happened. Not-Sherlock is_ not _Sherlock. Not possible. Didn’t happen._

John completely tunes out everything, shrinking into himself by excruciating increments. The thumping on the walls of his bunker has grown to a deafening roar and he’s trapped with the overwhelming idea that Not-Sherlock touched him. _Touched_ him. John crushes his eyes shut, rubbing manically at his face. _Didn’thappendidn’thappendidn’thappencouldn’thappendidn’thappen._

John stands abruptly, manoeuvers out from behind the coffee table and paces the length of the living room, pulling at his hair and mumbling his mantra. He doesn’t hear the footsteps from the bedroom, nor the creaks of the floorboards under the lino in the kitchen. He doesn’t hear the slight gasp and doesn’t bother to look up when Not-Sherlock stands in the way of his pacing. John just stops pacing and releases his hair, clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides. The tremor isn’t as bad if he keeps moving but the things about grief is: it stops you. You stop. Everything around you goes on like normal, but you; your thoughts; your entire existence comes to a halt. John hates stopping; hates inactivity. At this second he hates Sherlock for creating such an incredible void in his life but then hates himself for even thinking it. John could never hate Sherlock. Sherlock was Sherlock, beginning and end.

John finally, slowly looks up at Not-Sherlock and his too-light eyes.

“I couldn’t ever hate you, could I?” John looks away before he can see the look of absolute desperation on Sherlock’s face. 

John evades Not-Sherlock, moving around him to fix himself a cup of tea. Routine is better than inactivity but still as hateful, in John’s eyes. He picks up his routine, making lunch and sitting down with his laptop to sit fruitlessly in front of his blog. He updates it perhaps once a month at Harry’s behest, she says that the few people that still read it will worry. John can’t care less about the few people that still read it. In fact, he can’t care less about anyone anymore. He can’t name one person he couldn’t live without anymore. The answer used to be simple: Sherlock. He couldn’t live without Sherlock. Still can’t live without him.

John’s eyes are drawn from the computer screen, up toward the kitchen where Not-Sherlock has taken up residence for right now. His numb brain registers the sounds: faucet, kettle, cupboard door, sugar container. Not-Sherlock is making coffee. The ghost is making himself coffee.

John’s dry and heaving laugh breaks the horrid silence, growing louder until John is in stitches on the sofa. His laugh gets drier until it’s rough and harried, spilling from his throat in desperate patches. He voice eventually gives out, but John still laughs. He laughs at the whole predicament: at Sherlock’s suicide, at his own emptiness; at the way his whole life is swirling down a giant plughole and he’s helpless to stop it; at Not-Sherlock and his uncanny ability to simultaneously comfort and drive him mad; at the goddamn touch. As he runs through the events of the last three years in his head, John laughs until the tears stream down his unshaved face, pooling in the dip between his collar bones. He’s not weeping, though, and the little voice in the back of his mind unchanged by his circumstances tells him that’s a good thing.

John laughs so hard his ribs ache and Not-Sherlock stands in front of him with a baffled expression on his damn gorgeous face.

John laughs himself out.

Finally, nearly half an hour later, he calms and picks his laptop up off the floor where it’d fallen.

“Didn’t happen, couldn’t have happened. You’re dead, aren’t you. Dead. I buried you. Didn’t happen,” John tells Not-Sherlock as he types the obligatory ‘still here, nothing happening’ into the Post section of his blog. He types slower than _before_ but it doesn’t bother him. John’s intent on the screen and his keystrokes so he feels more than sees or hears Not-Sherlock leave the room.

He presses Enter and shuts the computer, setting it on the coffee table.

“Didn’t happen.” He rubs at his stomach, feeling the muscles tighten in protest to his laughing lark. “Didn’t happen.”

John hears more rustling in the kitchen and decides that if there’s going to be coffee made, he may as well make it himself. Sherlock was never very good at making himself anything, despite being a top-notch chemist.

“Here, let me,” he says, taking the kettle from Not-Sherlock and putting it under the faucet to fill. Not-Sherlock puts up no fuss, being careful not to touch him. “Sit down, you look tired,” John giggles at his own joke while Not-Sherlock perches in Sherlock’s favorite chair. John shakes his head twice and fiddles with the kettle’s switch. He’d dropped it about a month ago, but couldn’t leave the flat to buy another. Truth was, John was a bit nervous to let it go, even if it was finicky and broken. Sherlock would always drink the tea and coffee John made him, even if he refused to eat. John wasn’t ready to give the damn thing up.

“Sugar?” John asked, polite even to a dead man.

“Two, please,” the ghost’s voice was so quiet and polite John had to rethink what he’d said to make sure he’d heard correctly. John laughed once more at his situation, scooping sugar into the coffee and setting it on the table for Not-Sherlock to pick up himself. John is determined not to come in contact with him again.

“John?” Not-Sherlock’s voice has gotten slightly louder, as if begging to be heard but not sure it was welcome. As far as John is concerned it wasn’t welcome.

“Nope, don’t --. Just don’t, alright? Don’t.” John walks to the basin and begins scrubbing the dishes from his lunch, albeit not as vigorously as he had the worktops and floors. His hands hurt and he’s recovered from his shock so he only washes them with the detergent and places them in the rack to dry.

He’s on his teacup before he hears the scrape of a chair against the lino and the groan of the floor as Not-Sherlock walks toward him. John’s breath quickens and he realizes he’s stopped washing the cup, just holding it. He shakes himself from whatever it is that’s got into him and continue scrubbing the tea from the cup.

He whispers to himself as he scrubs, but it doesn’t work this time. His heart is thumping in his chest and whatever it is, is thumping on the walls of his bunker and the pain is thumping in his hands and there’s altogether too much _thumping_ so John huffs and sputters and drops the cup onto the lino where it shatters.

“Damnit,” John says, louder than he wants. Not-Sherlock startles from where he stands three feet behind John.

“John…?” John hears Not-Sherlock say, but instead of answering him he simply throws the other cup from the rack across to the opposite wall. It breaks into three pieces; he didn’t throw it very hard. John pushes his hands through his hair and breathes heavily out through his nose. He paces three steps toward the wall and three steps back.

“No, Sher--,” John stops, can’t bring himself to say his name. “No. Just… No.” John points with two fingers at the ghost and bows his head in admonishment. Not-Sherlock looks appropriately subdued so John grabs the broom and sweeps up the remains of the two teacups, binning the shards, and heading back up to his room.

“Three cups today. There won’t be any left soon,” John shakes his head in disbelief, curling on his side on top of the duvet.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for this chapter, don't hate me. Well, if you do hate me, construct your argument in a lateral and linear argument and put it in the comments box. I'd like to hear all of your thoughts, every little bit helps.

Sherlock is stymied. Mycroft was of no help whatsoever, only doing more to remind Sherlock that sentiment is a wholly unsavory thing.

As he sits on the kitchen chair, Sherlock runs through the conversation with his brother. Mycroft’s near-sympathetic tone had sickened Sherlock further, and the man’s words had done nothing to allay Sherlock’s anxiety.

_Tread carefully_ , he’d said. Sherlock had scoffed then and he scoffs now. His attempts at treading carefully have resulted in two more broken teacups, John’s hair being nearly torn out by the roots, and such extreme tension in his doctor’s shoulders Sherlock was positive tendons were going to snap.

John’s left now, limped up to his room and slammed the door shut. At a loss for anything else to do Sherlock sat back in the chair and now stares vacantly at the backsplash opposite.

_Tread carefully. What a load of utter_ bollocks.

He vigorously ruffles his hair, groaning in exasperation.

_Bollocks_ , Sherlock thinks. _Complete bollocks._

He pulls out his phone, accessing the messages and pulling up the most recent. He stalls, though, staring at the selected set, considering for a moment before letting his fingers fly over the glass.

**Change of plans. Need you here today, teatime. Don’t forget the case files.**

**-SH**

_ Are you sure everything is alright? I don’t need any more of your lies, Sherlock, really. _

_ -D. I. Lestrade, New Scotland Yard, London _

**Quite. Teatime. The case.**

**-SH**

_ Yeah, alright, no need to get snippy. _

_-D.I. Lestrade, New Scotland Yard, London_

**4:00 PM**

**-SH**

Sherlock clicks the phone off, letting it clatter to the wooden tabletop. His eyes rove the scarred surface, fingertips running over the deep scabbard-made groove. His lips twitch when he remembers the day it was left there.

John, not having lived in the flat for more than a month, was huffing about trying to get Sherlock up off his arse and help him with the shopping. Sherlock’s never told him about the ‘messenger’ and the… vigorous techniques used to try to get Sherlock to take the case. Sherlock’s never felt the need. For that whole case, _The Blind Banker_ as it was titled on John’s blog, Sherlock had been irrationally filled with the need to impress John. So he made it seems like he’d only sat in his chair reading; made it seem like he hadn’t severely miscalculated and been caught off-guard by a strangle-happy Chinese assassin; was snarky and sarcastic when coming to the rescue, despite the dire situation.

Hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20. Sherlock looks back on his actions and sees the jealousy and petty pride that drove him. Sherlock had wanted John as his even then; even so early on.

He’d known Sarah, with her lank and mousy hair and buxom figure was not right for John. Sherlock’s glad she stopped seeing John (his John) soon after that case had ended. They’d not even had sex.

It is petty, Sherlock knows, but he can’t help himself, not around John. So he’d weaseled himself into every date he could, purposefully went out of his way to tear each new woman apart but make it look as innocent as he could ever look. John never objected to Sherlock’s ministrations directly, always chalked it up to his own shortcomings and not the direct interference of his flatmate. His _friend._

Sherlock has never hated that word more than now. In one syllable, in six letters, a word stands between what _is_ and what _could be_. 

It’s absolutely infuriating.

Sherlock puts it from his mind (as far as Sherlock can put anything from his mind) and stands with a flourish, walking to the front windows to watch London life go by.

His right hand rests on his violin case but he daren’t pull it out to play.

He can hear John pacing upstairs, six quick steps one way ( _pause_ ), six quick steps back ( _pause_ ), and again. The repetitive noise is enough to moderately smooth Sherlock’s frayed nerves. He doesn’t think about why John is pacing, just that he is pacing and the steady _thump-click-thump-click_ of John and his cane across the old oak flooring.

_Wonder how long it took for the limp to return. Didn’t have the cane that day at the grave; wish Mycroft and Molly had told me specifics._

_No_ , Sherlock thinks, parting the gauzy drapes with his left hand, _I don’t wish they’d told me specifics. I wouldn’t have stayed away, wouldn’t have been able to._

Though Sherlock’ll never admit it to his face, Mycroft was right to keep some details from him. He would have lost focus and it was already difficult enough not to imagine John lying next to him when Sherlock allowed himself to sleep, pushing the hair from his forehead, promising him soon as he drifted in that twilight-state. Sherlock could never fall asleep fully, not with an entire, expertly trained criminal organization after him.

But John would be there, watching for intruders and assassins, playing sentry while Sherlock’s mind was given an earned respite. And he was always there for Sherlock to wake up to.

Sherlock snorts a quiet laugh, derisively acknowledging his own half-formed hallucinations.

He stands straight as he can, letting the curtain fall back, and sniffs.

He’s made up his mind.

He’s going to do whatever it takes to get his John back, even if that means _not_ treading carefully.

Sherlock grips the violin case, lifting it from the sill, and carries it to the coffee table.

He reverently opens the case, running his hands over the wooden instrument nestled within before reaching up to a compartment in the top half of the case where he keeps the polishes and rosins. Selecting the polish first, Sherlock uncaps it and douses the accompanying flannel before he hoists the ancient instrument into his arms.

Cradling the Stradivarius carefully, he polishes the neglected wood, making sure to be meticulous and precise, loosening and removing the old strings before polishing the neck and fingerboard, detaching the shoulder-rest before polishing the lower bout and chin rest. He uses a special cloth brush to polish the pegbox, scroll, and f-holes. He then replaces and tightens the catgut enough to tune and turns to the bow, polishing and then taking the rosin to the coarse hairs.

By the time he’s satisfied enough to tune the thing, it’s run half 11. He reattaches the shoulder-rest, lifts it to his chin, and, with a glance to the stairwell, Sherlock draws the bow against a very flat string.

It takes Sherlock another hour to tune the Strad perfectly, only using his ear. His eyes often flick to the door and the staircase beyond.

_John will come back._

_John must come back._

_John will come back to me and it will be as close to before as things can get._

_I will force John to come back._

_John will come back._

Sherlock’s muscles release one by one, unbunching and stretching gloriously as he runs through scales and arpeggios, stopping to fine tune as he hears the need. He can’t hear foot- and cane-falls anymore, he imagines John has sat down on the bed, perhaps gone to sleep.

Along with his body falling into rest, Sherlock can feel his mind aligning into familiar, lateral pathways and modes. His eyes slide closed as he picks up Vivaldi’s Winter: Allegro. Although it is his favorite of the Four Seasons, that is perhaps not this only reason for playing it.

Sherlock recalls a night just before Christmas 2011, before the Woman debacle, where he and John were the only people at 221B (Mrs Hudson had gone to her sister’s). John had lit the fireplace and it was warm and peaceful and _calm_. Sherlock remembers being surprised at how not-bored he was, sitting across from John who was already wearing a hideously festive jumper.

John had looked at him and asked if he _wouldn’t play something nice?_ so Sherlock picked up the Strad and plucked this piece out of all the ones that constantly played in the back of his head. It begins relatively slow and calm, but speeds up and becomes more complicated and intricate. Not really meant to be played as a solo piece but suitable all the same, Sherlock remembers the look of incandescent contentment on his doctor’s face. He can close his eyes now and recall with perfect clarity the way John’s blue-blue eyes slid closed and the right side of his mouth quirked up ever-so-much and all his muscles relaxed into the music all at once so he wasn’t so much sitting in the chair as looking like he was poured onto it. 

Sherlock had improvised from Vivaldi to Bach but John didn’t notice or care because he never moved till the last note, when he opened his eyes and looked right into Sherlock – and grinned.

Sherlock loves John’s grins. He doesn’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do to win one of those grins now.

His last draw of the bow across the strings brings with it the sound of string and heavy footfalls on stairs.

Sherlock doesn’t look. He can’t look; can’t see the look on John’s face. He only replaces the violin reluctantly into its case and the case against the sash.

“Why _that_ piece, of _all_ pieces?” John asks from the doorway.

Sherlock wants to say something like _because it’s the piece I played when I became alright with loving you_ but he only grunts and stares out the window to the street below.

( _Man on the opposite kerb hailing a cab that’s been to France twice in the last week: visiting his fiancée, judging by the mud on his Oxfords and French coat-of-arms on his pocket square [can’t be French himself, not with the cut of that suit] and worry lines in his forehead [worried about marrying a Frenchwoman? Ah, yes, there, in the cufflinks] but -_ )

“Do you remember that night? What am I saying, of course you do. You looked so peaceful by the fire. I remember because it was refreshing to see you so relaxed. As your doctor I was always worried you never had enough down-time, worried you never relaxed enough,” John says as he makes a cup of tea. “Tea?” he asks, scoffing.

Sherlock turns on his heel toward the kitchen, shaking his head in negation. John’s not looking so he vocalizes _no_ and watches the older man carefully replace the cup he’d gotten from the shelf for him.

Sherlock shoves his hands in his pockets and just watches, thinking all the while _John must come back John will come back I’ll bring John back_.

He steals a glance at the clock.

_Two o’clock. Not long now._

Sherlock hopes ‘killing two birds with one stone’ would have a suitable outcome; he would ask Mrs Hudson to fill the position Lestrade was unknowingly taking up but Sherlock fears she might have gone through too much already, no need for more excitement. Also, Lestrade was bringing the case so 221B wouldn’t have an extra caller to take up necessary John-and-Sherlock time. The case was trivial, nothing more than a jealous cousin and a coveted pocket watch, but Sherlock couldn’t very well text the DI saying _sorry, I need you to pop by because my flatmate need third party, second opinion type reiteration of my living presence because he’s gone round the twist some time ago and has been hallucinating my image already; also the cousin did it for the watch –SH_ now could he?

It would certainly be more dramatic, but Sherlock expects he’d get hit again.

He rolls his jaw, testing it. Lestrade hadn’t hit hard enough to leave a visible bruise but it is a bit sore. So is Sherlock’s pride, but he ignore that in favour of plotting revenge. By the end of this month, the DI will have had to replace four pairs of handcuffs, six badges, and cancel two credit card if Sherlock gets his way. One does not punch, shout at, and then _hug_ Sherlock Holmes without retribution. Well, unless one was John Watson.

And Sherlock did expect violence from John, when he fully realizes. He expects to be hit till he bleeds.

_I deserve so much worse. So much worse._

John makes tea in a precise way every time: while the kettle boils he prepares the teabags and teacups, always using a saucer and spoon. He gets the milk from the ( _sparingly filled but with all the staples_ ) refrigerator, lining it up on the demilune table near the kettle. 

Once the water’s boiled, John lets the teabags steep for precisely two minutes and 30 seconds, no longer unless it’s before 10 AM, and then he lets it steep for another 30 seconds ( _or when he makes my tea_ , Sherlock thinks, _I always drink it stronger than he_ ). Then John adds just enough milk to change the colour but not quite enough to alter the taste.

Tea made, John trundles carefully to the sitting room, cup on a saucer rattling softly with each laboured step, to where he sets the steaming cup down on the side table before carefully sitting down himself. He reaches for the channel-changer and flicks on the telly, but he doesn’t watch what’s on the screen ( _that wretched_ Glee _programme again, must be a special_ ). He just settles and turns to look at – Sherlock.

Sherlock starts a tiny bit – really just a surprised stiffening of his posture – at the easy way John can look upon him but not see him.

Sherlock’s brow furrows when he notices signs of physical distress in John’s face ( _his own brows furrowing, corners of eyes puckering, visage crinkling at edges and all I can see is_ pain) and Sherlock lifts a leg two inches off the floor to step forward and _ask what’s wrong, are you alright?_ but he catches himself.

_That would not do. Not do at all._

So Sherlock simply watches John pinch the bridge of his nose and squeeze his eyes shut like he has a migraine. _Maybe he does. Just a migraine_. Sherlock quickly dismisses all thoughts of brain tumors and growths, even though such a thing could fit the symptoms seemingly present ( _extreme weight loss, headaches, hallucinations, mood swings_ ) because Sherlock simply _refuses_ to entertain an idea like that.

He keeps his mind carefully blank while his watches his doctor compose himself and look out the window instead of at him. It’s a simultaneous relief and disappointment, not having that deceptively shrewd gaze upon him now.

Sherlock goes to the settee and flings himself down upon it, legs spread eagled and one arm over his face, but he doesn’t make excessive noise. He’s fearful of John’s mood swings and doesn’t want to incur a similar episode to the one in the kitchen earlier this morning. He doesn’t think the teacup supply would hold out a week if he carries on as noisily as he would before.

John sighs once in the time Sherlock lays there on the couch. Sherlock can hear him adjust in the armchair twice, drink his tea in three separate swigs, knocking the spoon gently as he sets the cup back in the saucer each time. He never changes the channel or increases the sound. Though he can’t see him Sherlock thinks he’s not even watching the telly. He doesn’t feel like John is watching him either, so feels safe enough to hazard a peek from under the crook of his elbow: sure enough, John is staring out the window. Something inside of Sherlock aches at seeing his lively and happy doctor so vacant and still but he quashes it quickly.

_Not conducive, Sherlock. Not. Conducive._

Sherlock stays still like that a while, peeking under his arm, watching the rise and fall of his companion’s chest, taking small comfort that at least John is breathing.

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

HAS THE SITUATION CHANGED, SHERLOCK?

-M

**No. Lestrade will be here at 4 PM.**

**-SH**

WOULD YOU LIKE AN AMBULANCE ON STANDBY?

-M

Sherlock pauses mid-reply, deleting the smart-arsed insult before sending a simple **No, thank you. –SH**. He realizes that Mycroft’s offer was not a jibe; Sherlock could very well end up in need of a visit to A &E, but he sincerely hopes John will restrain himself before it gets that bad.

THERE WILL BE ONE ON STANDBY NEVERTHELESS, BROTHER MINE.

-M

**Sod off, Mycroft.**

**-SH**

SHERLOCK, WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT TREADING CAREFULLY? I THINK YOU PURPOSELY GO ABOUT CONTRADICTING MY EVERY WORD

-M

**If you’re worried about that, then perhaps you should be more careful about how you word your ‘requests.’**

**-SH**

TOUCHÉ.

-M

**Quite.**

**-SH**

Sherlock exits the messages application and steals another glance at the clock, which reads 15:24. Suddenly Sherlock’s not certain he wants what’s coming. His heart has lodged itself in his throat, beating unbelievably fast and alarmingly irregularly. He has to consciously relax the hand that has created a vice-grip around the iPhone, clicking it dark and shoving it in his jacket pocket.

He’s just gotten his heart to beat a regular thrum when his phone vibrates again.

Without unlocking it, Sherlock reads:

_ Taking a minicab from Molly’s; be there in 30 mins tops. _

_ -D.I. Lestrade, New Scotland Yard, London _

Sherlock swivels to a sitting position quickly, startling John out of his daze. Sherlock launches himself to a standing position, swaying a bit with vertigo before he mumbles something about the bathroom, walking quickly and shutting himself up in it, not caring at this point if John hears the door shut.

He runs the tap, filling the basin with cold water. Splashing his face several times, it does little to quell the rising nausea and anxiety.

Sherlock braces himself on the sink, looking at his face in the mirror, counting prime numbers backward from 1057.

_It must be done has to be done it’s unavoidable you want this Holmes you organized it all can’t back down John needs to comes back he needs to know Sherlock has come home has to know Sherlock is alive has to know that Sherlock faked his death that he lied to him that he lied lied lied._

Whatever peace the Strad had constructed in Sherlock’s mind is torn down bit by bit every time his traitorous conscience chants _liedliedlied_ in the echoing atrium of Sherlock’s mind palace.

The minutes tick by while Sherlock tries to compose himself holed up in the loo, staring at his damp face in the mirror.

Then: he hears it.

The sharp _rapraprap_ of the knocker on the street-level door.

Sherlock nearly vomits.


	20. Chapter 20

John’s migraine is getting steadily worse. He knows it’s due to that goddamned _thumping_ in his head but he also knows that it’s too late to take Paracetamol so he’ll have to suffer through it.

When Not-Sherlock bolts from the room around 4:30, John is startled from his examination of the windowsill, and the _thumping_ gets impossibly louder, even rivaling the slam of the bathroom door John immediately ignores.

He giggles breathlessly: his own looniness had transferred to his hallucinations.

Minutes go by and John ignores the sounds of running water emanating from the loo.

 _This isn’t happening_ , he thinks incredulously, scrunching his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose. He slowly recovers; it’s easier when he can’t feel the stare of his _companion_. The violin earlier was just the cherry on top. 

_I should stop being surprised_ , thinks John ruefully. He fights with the cane as he stands to get another cup of tea. He reaches the sliding doors when he hears the sharp knocker-rap of the streetside door.

 _Christ, what the hell is it now?_ he thinks, even as he reaches to the cupboard above the kettle to fetch an extra cup for his guest.

Mrs Hudson gets the door, as always, and John can hear her light tone joined by Lestrade’s recognisably gruff one.

John groans softly, pulling his face into a scowl as he hears Lestrade’s quick gait up the steps.

“Hey, John!” says the DI, unusually chipper. There’s something else in his voice but John is distracted by a crescendo in the _thumping_ in his skull.

He tamps down his nausea and gestures to the kettle.

“Tea?” he asks, his voice oddly strangled. He hopes Lestrade doesn’t notice and thankfully the grey-haired man just says _yeah, sure_ before going to sit in the lounge. He takes a seat on the couch, which John thinks is strange, but he quickly busies himself with not spilling over as he hobbles to the DI with his tea.

John sits in his armchair, swiveling a bit to face the copper. Before he can open his mouth, though, to ask the meaning of the visit, Lestrade opens his own.

“So John, how are you? It must be difficult and all, but it’ll get better, yeah? Shock and all that -,” he is suddenly interrupted by Not-Sherlock swooping into the room. “Oh, Sherlock, there you are. Here’s the case, though I don’t know why I’m giving it to you, I thought I’d learned my – John? John, are you alright?”

John has stood from the chair, breathing like he’s run a four-minute mile, looking wildly between the two men in the room. He relaxes marginally, though, when a little voice in his bunker shouts _Lestrade’s just another of your mind’s tricks, relax._ But something’s not right, and John knows it.

His stomach feels like it stayed in the chair even as he shot out of it; the damned _thumping_ in his brain has quickened in pace and increased in volume. John can feel the blood empty from his face as he watches Lestrade _watch_ Not-Sherlock watch him. Lestrade _watches_ Not-Sherlock.

_Lestrade can see him?_

Lestrade walks forward to John, resting his ( _heavy, palpable, fucking real_ ) hands on his shoulders, worry creasing his tan face.

At the contact John yelps, and Lestrade steps quickly away, worry replaced with shock and confusion.

“John, mate, are you alright?” Lestrade asks, but John is most certainly _not_ alright and he can’t answer even if he wanted to, which he doesn’t.

Lestrade can see Not-Sherlock.

Lestrade can _see_ Not-Sherlock.

Lestrade touched him.

Lestrade touched him.

_Lestrade is real. Lestrade can see Not-Sherlock._

John turns to Lestrade.

“You can see him, too?” John’s voice isn’t above a whisper and all at once the blood runs out of Lestrade’s face, too.

“Sherlock?” Lestrade asks, floundering for comprehension.

_Lestrade is real. Lestrade can see Not-Sherlock. Not-Sherlock is… real?_

John and Lestrade turn to Sherlock simultaneously. The man is standing next to the coffee table, his face carefully blank.

“Yes, Lestrade, John’s been unwell and hadn’t truly understood my… return. Your presence had made him aware and I believe now is the time you should leave. Oh, yes, the case: it was the cousin for the pocket watch.”

John is at a complete standstill, body and mind. He’s watching pale lips moving, hearing that baritone, seeing Lestrade’s acknowledgment of a dead man’s words.

John feels the realisation settle over him, painting his body with pure emotion: hope, elation, relief, fury, betrayal, grief, bewilderment. They crawl over his body, leaving a sickening coat on everything until there’s nothing but the knowledge.

He feels his knees give out but instead of worrying about falling, John’s focussing on the way the layer of emotions pulls and tears and stretches on his skin. He can feel the cracks and abrasions where he’s positive Lestrade and ( _oh God it’s really him_ ) Sherlock can see through to his skin, but as soon as he confesses them, patches of guilt and joy and anger repair them and John’s swallowed whole.

He doesn’t notice that Lestrade and Sherlock ( _oh God oh God_ ) have caught him under the arms; doesn’t notice he’s being manoeuvred to his chair and set carefully into it.

John’s mind has vacated his body, forced out by the overflow of long unused emotions. All that’s left are simple sensations, like how his leg is rubbing against his jeans are rubbing against the chair.

His skin is too tight, too dry. It feels like he’s been sitting for _ages_ , collecting layers and layers of dust. He’s afraid that if he moves and shakes all the dust, he won’t recognise the man underneath.

It’s both a blessing and a curse when he hears Not-Sherl – _no. Sherlock’s_ voice.

“John,” it says, filled with unmistakable worry. And it’s like a bucket of water has been dumped over him, washing away the dust and painted-on emotion, rousing him from the grief. John, despite his fears, _can_ recognise the man underneath all that muck, and that man is _angry_. He’s furious. The psychosomatic tremor turns to a rage-induced quake. John’s eyes sting and his vision blurs around the edges.

_Sherlock is real._

_Sherlock is alive._

_Sherlock is here._

_SherlockSherlockSherlock._

John stands, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, mind having returned with a vengeance. He looks at Lestrade and, ignoring the bemused expression on the man’s face says:

“Get out.” Lestrade is quick to comply.

John watches him go, eyes remaining on the doorway even after he hears the street-level door open and close shut after the DI.

The silence is corporeal. It bears heavily in on them, paradoxically begging for some sort of break but forcing everything to remain absolutely still.

John thinks maybe the silence is only paranoia, and is proven right when his own erratic breath sounds reach his ears. Now that he’s been doused clean, he can hear Sherlock’s quiet, even breaths, too. It’s too much; too much all at once.

John’s hands press into the sides of his head like he’s trying to force his mind into order. He’s still not looking at Sherlock.

They stay like that for a while: John standing feet from the door, Sherlock standing by the coffee table.

Neither is willing to move; to break the current stasis.

But needs must.

John lowers his hands after his thoughts have assembled themselves to a manageable sort of entropy in his skull.

His fists clench and stretch, shaking violently. He takes a deep breath.

“Why -- …?” he asks without turning.

John hears Sherlock’s readying intake of breath but realises he doesn’t want to hear what Sherlock’s about to say.

Drawing on long-since used speed and strength John turns and crosses to the ghost – _man_ , grabbing him by the lapels.

“Nope,” says John, adrenalin coursing through his veins and tension crackling across his skin.

His grip doesn’t loosen and despite the sudden movement, Sherlock isn’t struggling to get away or protect himself. Those too-light eyes beseech John from above.

That _thumping_ in John’s lead reasserts itself and John grimaces with the force of it.

John’s instincts have always been right. His gut has never led him astray: not on the battlefield, not in the operating theatre, not running about London with Sherlock.

As clean as this, this… _revelation_ has made John he recognises that the pounding in his head is his instinct, begging to be heard.

So he opens the door in his bunker, and lets it in.

For all the noise it was making on the walls of his mind, John’s instinct is only an exact replica of himself, but he’s wearing a wry, knowing smirk on his face as he strides past him to the wall where he keeps the most recent memories.

John’s curiosity draws him over to stand behind his uniformed intuition, watching as he pulls ‘photographs’ from the pile john hasn’t had the ambition to sort. The ones his instinct pull seem random, unconnected:

An image of the tears he saw on Sherlock’s face yesterday. Sherlock’s incongruous motions and seeming freedom from John’s own thoughts and wishes. The way Sherlock’s face would crease with confusion or worry. His bafflement at John’s ‘nightly ritual.’ The touch.

Strung together on the shelf, laid out by his instinct as they are, John feels shame wash over him.

_How did I not see it?_

‘Yes, how did you not see it?’ mumbles his bunker companion with a scoff.

John’s realisation takes only a second of real-time but in his head it feels like days.

John shakes himself of his reverie, blinking up at ( _real, alive, here_ ) Sherlock.

The rage is still there, simmering in his blood and screwing up his face.

John’s left hand leaves ( _real, alive here_ ) Sherlock’s jacket, pulling back in a swift movement. His too-long left behind instinct takes over and John’s fist crashes against ( _real, alive, here_ ) Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock’s on the floor with the force of John’s second punch, but he doesn’t make any move to parry the blows or stand.

John leaves him there, his own chest and shoulders heaving with adrenalin and long-pent-up energy, nearly begging Sherlock to fight back.

The younger man doesn’t. He stays where he fell, staring up at John. His grey eyes plead with John’s; they beg him to understand; to forgive.

The utter familiarity of them sends John’s anger skittering to the recesses of his mind.

Not speaking, John kneels down next to Sherlock and goes to examine his already-purpling cheekbone. When Sherlock shies away, John’s heart seizes up a bit.

“I’m not going to hurt you anymore, you great git,” says John quietly, no heat in his tone.

No damage was done, thank God, but John still hoists Sherlock up off the floor and sits him on the settee with a tea towel filled with ice, making him press it to his face.

John sits next to Sherlock, twisting to face the younger man. His knee presses against Sherlock’s thigh but when John goes to pull away Sherlock’s free hand shoots out and stops him.

John’s eyes dart to Sherlock’s, questioning, but he doesn’t move any further away.

“So,” says John, pointedly not looking at where Sherlock’s dextrous fingers are resting on his knee.

“So,” affirms the dead man quietly. Something in his voice prompts John to ask a question, any question. His intuition, who’s settled himself stubbornly in their bunker, booted feet up on a near-empty shelf tells him loudly that he _just wants to hear Sherlock’s voice, no matter what words it’s forming_. So he suggests the questions that require the most vocalisation to answer.

“Why did you jump, what have you been doing the past three years, and why did you come back?”

Sherlock’s mouth quirks into a lopsided grin. Then he begins.

********************

“So you’re telling me that all it took was three gunmen, two pints of somebody else’s blood, a rubber ball, and Molly Hooper?” John asks incredulously.

They’ve been sitting there on the couch, Sherlock telling his story. It’s been almost three hours and John’s leg is screaming to a reprieve from the current position but he refuses to move: it’s the one place he’s touching Sherlock.

Over the course of his story, Sherlock has been unconsciously tracing lazy circles on John’s kneecap. John could drown in the sensation.

When Sherlock had gotten to the part in his recollection when he pitched himself off the roof, the pair fell silent. John had tentatively reached out and felt Sherlock’s skull: where there should have been a spiderweb of broken bone there was only smooth and untouched cranium. Sherlock had waited patiently when John had broken down and wept, only gripping his doctor’s knee tighter.

When prompted, Sherlock continued his story, studiously ignoring the rising need to _touch John everywhere._

John had only hit him once more, when he had reached the day before in his story.

 _No ambulance after all_ , thinks Sherlock as they just sit and look at each other.

John keeps making movements toward the hand Sherlock has on his knee, but he aborts them halfway through, diverting his hand to pick lint that doesn’t exist off his shirt or jeans.

“John,” says Sherlock, and he swallows heavily when a strangled noise comes from the back of his doctor’s throat.

 _Jesus, I fucking hate this man. He lied to me, to Mycroft (at least at first), to everyone. He lied to the world; made us all look like idiots. And I still can’t keep it together when he says my name like that_ , thinks John as he turns his face up and looks at the detective.

“You lied,” he says simply. He not prepared for the devastated look that falls over Sherlock’s face.

“I did. It was the only way,” he says, voice distorted by emotion.

“Yeah,” says John noncommittally. “The only way.”

The doctor reaches out his hand, finally settling it over the detective’s, his fingers pressing into his wrist.

John takes comfort in _this_ thumping because it means Sherlock’s alive.

It means Sherlock’s here.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Bailey, who hurled insults and curses and terrible, terrible things at me for this chapter; I don't think any of this could have come to fruition without her.

"I'm not quite sure how to react right now, Sherlock," John's voice still cracks when he speaks the other man's name. "I mean, I want to hit you, I want to hug you. I want to walk out of this flat and never come back. I want to stay and not let you out of my sight ever again. I don't know what to do with you, in all honesty."

Sherlock cringes at John's admission, desperately and obscenely wanting John to both hit him and never let him out of his sight. If Sherlock is honest with himself (and he almost always is), he's not sure what to do with John, either. He hasn't thought past getting the doctor to _understand._

The detective clears his throat to speak.

"I believe the vernacular term is to take 'baby steps,' John," John chokes out a laugh at the nearly audible quotation marks.

"Yes," he says simply and quietly. "Baby steps."

The pair fall into a strained and anticipatory silence, though neither of them know what they're anticipating.

For the first time since they sat on the couch (now almost four hours ago), Sherlock pries his eyes from John's person and looks about the room.

"I've told you my story," says Sherlock so quietly John has to strain to hear him. "What's yours? I know some of what's happened the last three years but… But not all of it."

Sherlock still isn't looking at John, instead studying the new paths that have been worn in the carpet.

"Nothing happened. Nothing at all." John's tone is tense and his words clipped. Sherlock recognizes this mannerism as John's _I am in no way going to talk about this right now_ mannerism and it makes his chest annoyingly tight. They fall into another awkward silence.

John's right hand is still wrapped around Sherlock's left wrist, pressed against his radial pulse. It steadies Sherlock as much as it does John. As long as John can feel the life in Sherlock's veins, the detective can pretend that everything's all right.

Everything has been said on Sherlock's end. _Well_ , he thinks, _everything important_. He has not told John he knows about the times John was found by the grave; hasn't told him who truly resides there. John assumes the grave is empty and Sherlock is eager to let him believe that.

 _I'll save that for another time, when I need a good beating_ , thinks the younger man.

The ice has melted to soak the tea towel and Sherlock drops the soaking cloth to the exposed floorboards where it slaps wetly against the wood. John assures him that the bruise will only be superficial; that nothing was broken. Sherlock almost wishes something had.

The taller man's free hand travels unconsciously ( _or is it?_ ) to his face, long fingers tracing the edges of the swelling on his cheekbone and up to where the third punch caught him in the eye. If he hadn't already had the tea towel filled with ice, the eye would certainly be swollen shut.

Sherlock slowly returns his hand to his lap to pick at the seam on his trouser leg.

"What are you going to do now? I mean, Moriarty's scheme to convince the public you were a fraud fell apart maybe two years ago. Your name has been cleared, as well as Lestrade's, and my own for that matter. You can pick up where you left off, right? Consulting the police and being a private detective?" John's tone is split perfectly between hopeful and strangled.

Sherlock has no idea what he's going to do. He could, in theory, pick up exactly where he left off, but there's so much different that it wouldn't really be exactly where he left off, would it? There's a crucial piece of the puzzle that was Sherlock's life before, a centerpiece to the whole thing, and something's (or someone's, rather) come along and run it through a shredder and drowned it. _John_. John is that crucial piece and now that he's crumpled and jagged and sodden and frayed Sherlock is unsure that he can fit back into the image as soundly as he used to. _But_ , thinks Sherlock, _was I not also rung out and shredded and drowned and pick apart piece by sodding piece till I thought there was nothing left but the void? Am I not also a new man? Perhaps we each have changed directly in relation to each other so that, even with our new forms, we still fit together. Perhaps._

Sherlock makes a decision then.

"Let's get dinner. Are you hungry, I'm hungry, let's go to the Chinese down the street, I've missed the shrimp Rangoon," Sherlock hurries through his speech, standing so quickly he gets dizzy. John scrambles up after him, obviously confused.

"Sherlock, what, erm," John is at a loss for words, right hand scratching at the back of his neck. Sherlock recognizes this mannerism as John's _there's something I need to say but have no idea how to say it to you_ mannerism, so he patiently sets his arms at his sides and waits for John to piece together his thoughts.

"Sherlock, I, erm… I haven't left the flat in a, well, a frankly alarming amount of time. I don't know if going out right now is, er, okay. Plus, I've got the damn cane to worry…" John gives a pause then, Sherlock smirking his trademark smirk. The shorter man gapes a bit, hand dropping to his side, and he slowly turns round, eyes on the ground. There, fifteen feet away, on the floor, lies the cane. Abandoned.

John's hands return to his face as he scrubs down it roughly.

"Bugger all, you did it again, didn't you? You bastard, you right sodding git," John says, only minimal heat to his words. The room goes quiet as Sherlock watches John star at the akimbo cane.

"Dinner?" he asks again quietly.

"Er, yeah, let me, erm… Just gimme a second, Sherlock; you fuckin' whirl in here and take up all the space and then whirl out and I've not been exposed to it in a while so I'm a bit out of practice. Christ, bugger, fuck. Just – just give me a second." John pulls his top lip between his teeth and leans over, putting his hands on his knees. He looks ragged and wrecked and when he looks up at Sherlock and there is recognition an acceptance and absolute clarity in his eyes, Sherlock is almost positive he's never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life. Sherlock's breath whooshes out of his chest in a great gust of internal turmoil. John looks away, back at the floor, oblivious to Sherlock's distress.

Sherlock draws a shaky and tough breath in, trying to resolve equilibrium. His brain has shrieked to a halt, gears grinding to a stop. The only thing the detective can focus on is the rise and fall of John's shoulders as he breathes heavily, the aged and not-quite-untanned-yet skin of John's neck where his jumper's pulled down, the wheat-and-honey colors of the doctor's short hair.

"John," Sherlock wheezes, and the doctor finally looks up. Without knowing it, Sherlock has taken three steps toward the older man, stopping not a foot away. John straightens in mild surprise but there is no fear in his dark blue eyes, only mild suspicion and anticipation.

 _I might have died if John was afraid of me after all this_ , says a little tiny voice in the back of Sherlock's head that refuses to be shut up, no matter how quiet the rest of his great mind has gone.

"John," whispers Sherlock, and his breath moves John's fringe the tiniest bit. Sherlock's right hand comes up to touch the hairs John's name had moved across the tired man's forehead. The younger man simply touches the hair, not pressing or moving or pushing aside. His mind is still quiet as it's ever been and this time Sherlock is not disturbed by it. His eyes are focussed on his fingers as the run gently over that patch of grey at the front of John's head that he always speculated would be softer than the rest of his hair.

It is.

John's breath has caught in the back of his throat as he watches Sherlock's hand come up to touch. Unlike Sherlock, John's mind begins moving at full capacity, running through all the reason this can't be happening, all the reason this shouldn't be happening, all the reasons John should step back or push Sherlock away or tell him to stop. But John just stops breathing and watches Sherlock's eyes follow his fingers through his fringe. John sees Sherlock's pupils contract to near pin-pricks of black in a disc of seafoam green, then dilate so wide the green becomes a memory. John gasps a bit, his lungs burning from holding his breath for so long.

"John," Sherlock whispers, and John feels his breath carry his name over him like one of those ridiculous silk robes of Sherlock's.

"Sherlock," John says back in an equally quiet whisper and Sherlock's eyes snap to his from his hairline, pupils getting impossibly larger.

John's brain, screaming a thousand reasons for him to stop, alights on one quiet corner of his mind. There's nothing there but a reason. The one reason. That one reason John needs to not stop. That quiet corner has four words written on a slip of old scrap paper. They say _because you love him_. As he reads those words, the rest of John's mind is quieted and muted and John wants nothing more than to not stop.

So he doesn't.

John pushes his right hand in between Sherlock's jacket and his shirt, winding his way to the small of his back where his compact fingers spread and _pull_ and now it's Sherlock's turn to catch his breath in the back of his throat because _this is John and he's pulling not pushing and oh God his lips his lips his lips_. 

Kissing Sherlock is so unlike kissing anyone John is taken aback. Where soft, supple lips should be there are unrelenting ones, a hint of stubble surrounding them. But John has dreamed of this, wanted this, and dreaming and wanting are nothing compared to the reality of kissing Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock winds the fingers that were just touching into John's short hair and tugs, because he doesn't want John to pull away, not until he's done with him. And Sherlock's fairly certain he won't ever be done with this man.

John's mouth moves under his own and Sherlock is amazed that they hadn't done this before because _dear God, John's lips his mouth his tongue and teeth and cheeks and palate and oh God was that me moaning, or was it him? Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, don't stop John don't stop, don't ever stop._

John's mind is quiet but for the repeating of those four words.

_Because I love him._

_SherlockSherlockSherlock._

Neither want to break the kiss so they breathe sporadically through their noses and Sherlock quite likes that because his nose is pressed against John's cheek and when he breathes in there's nothing but _John._

John's hand fists in the expensive fabric at the back of Sherlock's shirt, pulling and pulling and _pulling_ till there isn't a millimetre of space between their chests. _John I missed you so much, John I love you, don't stop, don't ever stop, I'm sorry for hurting you, John, don't stop, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…_ Sherlock's mind has begun whirling about, trying to focus on everything at once: John's hand on his back, John's bottom lip in between his, John's heavy breath on his face.

It gets to be too much and though Sherlock wants _moremoremore_ he puts both his hands on John's face and pulls back just far enough that their lips aren't touching. He breathes one, two, three deep breaths, watching John's pulse in his neck and willing himself not to return to those wonderfully swollen and reddened lips.

"John, we have to stop; it's too much," he says finally, closing his eyes tightly. The only thing keeping him from diving back in and devouring John whole is sheer force of will and if he sees John's face, flushed and open with arousal that will will be torn down and thrust aside.

John sighs and it nearly breaks Sherlock.

"Yeah," John says, but unlike before Sherlock can detect no cynicism or skepticism; only agreement.

Neither of them moves back.

Nor are they moving toward each other.

John's hand readjusts against Sherlock's back, loosening its grip; for a split second Sherlock is terrified that he'll be the one to pull back first, but it's unfounded because John's hands simply splays out against his back, thumb running up and down his lower latissimus dorsi. Sherlock presses his forehead to John's and they both sigh.

Sherlock loses track of time, simply standing there in John's arms with John in his.

 _This_ , he thinks, _this is what I killed for. This is what I spent three years away for. This is John and this is me and this is right._

John holds on to Sherlock even as his consciousness feels like it's floating away. He is torn between bliss and anguish; acceptance and mental upheaval.

 _Sherlock is here_ , John thinks, _Sherlock is here and he was kissing me and now he's holding me and Christ doesn't it feel right?_

"Sherlock?" asks John, a mere murmur. Both their eyes are closed and they remain that way even as John speaks.

Sherlock hums a noise that denotes inquiry.

"What are we going to do?"

"I don't know. I do know that I want to stand here a while longer. I do know that I want Chinese with you. I do know that when we return with the food I know that I want to eat and laugh and just exist with you. I know that I want to watch crap telly till your eyelids droop. I know that I want to herd you to bed with a full belly and a sleepy mind and I know that I want to curl up around you so when you wake up and believe that this was all a dream you can open your eyes and see me and know. I know these things. I do not know that, John. I don't know that. And oddly enough, for right now I am perfectly content to be ignorant of that." His voice is quiet and for someone who claims vehemently that he is a sociopath, Sherlock's words are laced with so much emotion John's tenuous grasp on his own cracks and tears pour freely from his closed lids.

Hearing John's tears rather than seeing them, Sherlock's grip tightens in the doctor's hair and lets his own fragilely-reined emotions go and tears of his own leak out.

The hand that John had rested on Sherlock's hip while they were kissing moves up to the detective's cheek, and John scoffs at the wetness there, wiping it away.

"All right, Sherlock. Those things, that you said… Those things sound good. Let's do that. Let's do that," Sherlock can hear the faint smile in John's voice and he opens his eyes. John's eyes are open already and when Sherlock looks he can see flares of things he has no idea what he's done to deserve directed at him.

"Chinese, crap telly, bed," says John, smile broadening. His thumb curls around one of those gorgeous cheekbones. "Let's do that."


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Bailey, as ever.

The walk to the Chinese restaurant is tense. Sherlock nearly shouted when, on their way out the door, John picked up the blasted cane and began using it. He bit his tongue, however, and mentioned nothing to the older man. John looked ashamed enough that he’d have to use it anyway, no use piling on his acknowledgement as well as his admonishment. 

Sherlock revels in the way John’s familiar presence is all up is right side as they walk. This time, though, there’s also heat; John is standing closer than would be normally appropriate. He smirks a bit, some of the tension leaving his shoulders even as the persistent clicking of John’s unnecessary cane is ringing in his ears. 

Walking into the restaurant, Sherlock notices three things in succession: one, the owner of the restaurant has changed, though from father to son so the food is the same (corroborated by the bottom third of the door handle); two, they have redecorated some, probably with the change of ownership but most likely because the newest owner’s wife is into that American fad, New Age religion. It’s all cushions and tassels and hateful tie-dye patterns (at least food is same quality); third, he had made a terrible underestimation of the workers here. 

There’s a shriek and some shouting in Cantonese, a clatter from a wok being dropped on the range and a bit of rushing about, all cooks and servers and workers pushing against each other to crowd into the smallish dining area where John and Sherlock now stand. Other than the sizzling that means burned stir-fry that Sherlock can hear, it is silent. 

“Mr. Holmes,” says Luoyu, the hostess. “We – we did not believe anything those wretched journalists say on the television.” Her broken English was frayed more so by the strain in her throat, the tears she was keeping at bay. A woman nearing fifty, she was strong and capable and proud. Sherlock had liked – _does_ like, her sternness and uprightness. He didn’t even think she’d remember him, but it was apparent Sherlock hasn’t been thinking a lot, of late. 

Sherlock clears his throat, giving a small bow in deference. 

“Yes, thank you. I would appreciate it, however, if you kept my, erm, resurfacing, under tight lock and key for now,” Sherlock looked them all in the eyes one by one, down the line of wide-eyed Asian men and women. 

“Of course, Mr. Holmes. Anything for you. Tonight you eat for free, as well,” says Luoyu, rushing past he and John to flip the _open_ sign to _closed_ and pull the drapes. “Anything for you.” 

Sherlock swallows thickly, uncomfortable with the way the complete silence and utter stillness has suddenly erupted into chaos as all the workers go to, well, work. 

John harrumphs from his side. Sherlock turns his head to look at him, surprised to see John’s _Sherlock, god, the things I let you get away with_ face. Sherlock can feel his face form a questioning look but before he can voice his _what?_ they are being herded to a side table, sat down, and scads of food that had magically been prepared in such a short time was being thrust at them. There is crab and shrimp Rangoon, eggrolls, beef and broccoli, sweet and sour chicken and pork, bacon-wrapped pineapple, shrimp chow mein, fried noodles by the droves, and before Sherlock knows it, there are three other bistro-style tables pushed up against his and John’s to hold all of the platters of food. 

Sherlock’s stomach growls unhappily and not with the hunger he had felt at the flat. The hot piles of food that seem never to end and warm steam that wafted smells that should have been enticing only nauseated Sherlock. He hadn’t seen this much food since _before_ and really, it was not the time to be seeing it now. While away, Sherlock was lucky to get a meal a day, and most of the time he never bothered with it anyway. He was on the hunt, the game called to him from several corners of every room, eating would only slow down his response times and that could be deadly. 

So, here, safe and sound with John sitting across from him, tucking (albeit modestly) into the nearest plate, Sherlock can’t do it. He can’t be near this food, not for another second, or he’s afraid he’ll expel what little food Mycroft ( _insufferable_ ) made him eat before the flight. 

John, sensing Sherlock’s discomfit even through his own still-hazy consciousness, stops with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. 

“All right?” John asks, quietly, knowing what few workers are still on the floor are watching the pair intently. 

“Erm, the food. I’m not- I’m no longer accustomed to so much food,” says Sherlock, after a brief internal debate about whether or not to let John in on the less… heroic aspects of his time away. Till now he had kept to the bare bones (went away, killed people, replaced lies with truth, played the game, laid low). He hadn’t said where he’d gone other than the major places; hadn’t told of the injuries he’d sustained, the ways he’d had to keep to survive. 

John keeps his eyes on Sherlock’s face as he sets down his chopsticks. 

“Okay. All right. Well… Okay,” says John, stumbling over the words as Sherlock watches him look at the spread before them and back up at him. He can practically hear John’s mind tick away as he searches for a solution. Sherlock is just trying to keep his eyes on John and not the food. 

“Mrs. Cho,” says John, waving over Luoyu (who, of course, was waiting eagerly for one of them to beckon her). “Could you, erm, perhaps move some of this food? We can’t possibly eat it all between the two of us, and it really is a bit,” John looks quickly at Sherlock, “overwhelming. So if you wouldn’t mind…” 

“Of course, Doctor, of course, no problem, just one minute, I move it all for you. No problem. Let me know if you need anyting else, all right?” The stocky woman hefts three platters by herself, two on one arm and the last on her other, and shouts back toward the kitchen in Cantonese which Sherlock understands as _someone get their arse out here and clean up this damn food, too much too soon, I told you Chin, you buffoon, too much too soon._

Three more servers come out, grinning widely at Sherlock as they whisk away the food just as magically as it appeared. All that’s left when they’re done are two plates stocked generously (but not too generously) with food from all the different platters they had seen before. Sherlock’s has plenty of shrimp Rangoon and fried noodles on it ( _they even remembered my preferences, dear God, how many more people_ saw _me like these people?_ ) and John’s is piled high with lots of bacon-wrapped pineapple ( _they_ see _John, too, even now?_ ). It is easier to breathe; the rumble in his abdomen has slowed and is now a comfortable sort of hunger-growl and Sherlock feels like crying. John had stopped watching Sherlock when the last of the plates were cleared away. He is a bit more eagerly putting food in his own mouth ( _was he also affected by the sheer quantity of food?_ ) and for that Sherlock is grateful. 

He picks up his chop sticks, fumbling with them only slightly (half because he's unused to them and half because his hands are shaking) and brings a small clump of pork fried rice to his mouth. The savory taste blooms and washes away all nausea he may have felt so Sherlock is confident he can eat more, so he does. Lots more. So much more that his belly feels tight and there's swaths of dark blue plate showing between what's left of his food. 

Only after he's stuffed himself to near contentment does he realize John's eyes are on him; have been on him for some time, judging by the nearly-untouched food on the soldier's plate. 

"John?" asks Sherlock tentatively, unable to read the other man's face and unable to predict ( _always unable to predict_ ) John's next move. 

"Where did you get that scar, there?" asks John, pointing to his own face instead of touching it on Sherlock. Sherlock cringes. 

"This one?" he asks, reaching up to brush the long, pale tautness of scar tissue going from the corner of his jaw to where his deltoid meets his neck with his right hand. 

"Yeah," says John, watching his fingers trail across his skin. 

"Piece of broken rebar in Portland, Oregon," Sherlock says quietly. He'd told John he'd been to the States, told him he'd also been to Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Peru, the Bahamas, Australia, Laos, Croatia, Georgia-the-country, Georgia-the-State, Canada, Alaska, and most of the Western Continent, but hadn't told him many specifics. He should have known John wouldn't settle for basics. 

"And that one?" John points to the raised edge of a scar that was revealed when Sherlock's sleeve rose up as he touched the one on his neck. 

"Ah. Knife fight, Lima. Also got tetanus, that's why it healed incorrectly," Sherlock said thoughtfully. ( _If I keep it light and carefree I won't have to feel like it really happened to me, will I? Yes, keep it going with aloofness and precision, no emotions._ ) 

"Sherlock, how many knife fights did you get into while you were... Away?" John's ear tips are getting red which means that he's getting angry. Sherlock engages a tactical retreat. 

"Are you full? We can go, Jeremy Kyle is waiting for us," he says, looking hurriedly at his watch like he had the capability of caring about getting home for Jeremy Kyle. 

"Sherlock, don't change the subject. You owe me this; you owe me an explanation." 

He is right, of course, but Sherlock can see the three women servers are crowded around the till tittering and listening intently and he wishes to have him and John as far away from prying eyes as possible. He looks John in the eye. 

"John, I do owe you that. But right now I believe we have _crap telly_ to watch," he overdramatically jerks his head in the direction of the girls and the tittering crescendos and John's realization lightens the redness of his ears. 

"Yeah. Jeremy Kyle, you said?" 

Though Sherlock’s intentions are set in his mind ( _leave restaurant, get home, have conversation with John, hopefully not alienate him to the point of regression in mental state (or worse), go to bed/sulk in den (depending on results of conversation)_ ), the reality of the situation is somewhat different. Luoyu is determined to send the pair home with what could easily be twenty tonnes of food, and Sherlock cranks up the charm to talk her out of her sporadic maternal instinct and misplaced sense of responsibility, but (through many eye rolls on John’s part ( _he always knows when I’m being genuine and when I’m not_ )) and near-shouts of negation on Mrs. Cho’s part, John and he still walk out of the shop with two bags filled with cartons of Chinese food each. Sherlock resolves to leave the food on the stoop and text Marny to pick it up for her and the rest of the Vauxhall Arches residents. They’ll appreciate it far more than he and John possibly could. 

Upon voicing this plan to John ( _stupid,_ stupid!), John stops midstride and his ears tint pink again. Sherlock can see it even in the low amount of streetlight ambience. 

“The _homeless network_ knew?” John is very quiet and very still; always goes very quiet and very still when he is very angry. He shouts and abuses and bellows when he is perturbed, but when he is very, very angry, he goes quiet. 

Sherlock stands in front of him, hands in his pockets, and says the only thing he knows to say: 

“They were keeping watch, John. They were my eyes and ears and completely indispensable to me in insuring your continued existence. Indispensable in a way that not even Molly or Mycroft could obtain. They were my proxy here, John.” 

John shuffles from one foot to the other, leaning heavily on his cane. He licks his lips. 

“Sherlock, I don’t think I can do this,” John says. 

Sherlock shoves his hands into his pockets to stop himself from shaking the shorter man. 

“Do what, John?” he asks, a bit testily even to his own ears. 

“This,” John waves at the space between them, “whatever this is. I can’t just _do_ this, not after everything. Not after you _died_ , Sherlock. Because, even though you’re standing in front of me, you fucking _died_.” His weathered hand runs down his weathered face, dragging staccatos against his stubble. 

“I can’t do it.” 

Sherlock stands completely still, his slightly fogging breath the only signifier he isn’t actually a statue. 

“Do you -,” he stops, because he doesn’t think he can say it. “Do you, erm. Want me to go?” He’s severely startled by John’s reaction: John steps forward half a step, free hand reaching toward him, face so screwed up with what could be easily mistaken with extreme physical pain. 

“No,” he says sharply. He seems to get ahold of his wits and drops the hand reaching out, shuffling his feet again. “No,” John says more firmly. 

“Alright.” Sherlock says, watching John warily for signs of another outburst. 

They stand there, in the middle of the footpath in Baker Street, staring at each other as if not sure exactly how to approach one another. 

_How exactly do you breach three years of lies and unnecessary grief?_ thinks Sherlock sadly. 

“Right, erm, well, it’s a bit chilly out here, in the street, so let’s get home so you can regale me with exactly every detail of whatever the _fuck_ you were doing while I thought you were dead.” The venom in John’s voice is shaky at best, a defense mechanism Sherlock recognizes and understand to an extent, but still winces at. 

“Yes, of course,” he says, falling into step easily with the already-moving-on John. 

Sherlock quickly texts Marny and has John leave the food on the stoop when they reach 221B. The walk upstairs is filled with taut silence, more so than the walk home because of the solid walls pressing it in upon them. Sherlock swallows his need to run, hanging up his coat behind the door of the flat and perching himself on the edge of the couch. 

John busies himself with making tea, even though they each had cups at the restaurant. 

Sherlock does not want to have the impending conversation. He knows it is inevitable. He doesn’t care. Not one whit. He wants to go back to his and John’s original plan: Chinese, crap telly, and then bed. He wants to observe John. He’s been deprived of that luxury for three years. He wants to know if John’s body still veritably _deflates_ as he relaxes in the glow from the telly; if the fictions being displayed before him make him still chortle with amusement or grunt with distaste like they used to. Sherlock wants to know if John is still the same man, though he’s so changed. But he won’t learn tonight, it seems. At least not by simply observing. It seems John wants to be interactive and provoking and communicative. Sherlock is afraid. He’s afraid of what John will ask and what he’ll have to tell him. He’s afraid of alienating the man before he fully has him back again. _As if I ever_ had _him before_ , thinks Sherlock solemnly as John hands him a cuppa and sits less gracefully next to him on the couch. 

Sherlock has to suppress a grin as John settles, dropping the cane and spreading his legs just that little bit wider so his left leg is touching Sherlock’s right. 

John sips his too-hot tea before setting it back on the saucer and then on the coffee table. 

“Sherlock, we have to talk,” John raises his hand sharply to stop Sherlock from interjecting. “Not just talk. You know this, so don’t play dumb. I can’t… I _won’t_ be left in the dark on this; it’s just not gonna happen. I’m going to ask questions and you’re going to answer them fully, truthfully, and without conveniently leaving out certain details simply because you can or simply because you think it’ll make me angry or sad or sick or anything else. Do you understand? I cannot let this move forward without your complete and utter honesty, get that?” John’s voice is a quieter, less potent shadow of what Sherlock called his _soldiering_ voice, but it still has the desired effect. 

“Yes, John,” replies Sherlock, carefully maintaining eye contact with the shorter man. 

John clears his throat, rubbing his hands back and forth on his thighs. His left hand rubs against Sherlock’s in a not-unpleasant way and Sherlock has to stop himself from leaning into the heat, not quite succeeding. John’s hand stops abruptly, but it reaches over and plants firmly and steadily on Sherlock’s knee and the detective releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding. It’ll be easier if they’re touching; Sherlock is calmer when they’re touching; John is saner when they’re touching. It’ll just be easier. 

“Alright. From the beginning. Er, end. Well, alright, from the rooftop. You didn’t mean any of that rubbish about researching me, did you?” 

“No, John.” 

“And Molly helped you fake your death. Did you really jump, then?” 

“Yes, Molly helped me. I had jury-rigged a sort of suspension brace, kitted it out to absorb most of the shock from the fall. There was a bit of scaffolding left over from the refit, and that aided in cushioning the fall as well,” Sherlock finally looks away from John’s face, only regretting it afterwards. Sherlock’s tells were few and that was one of them; John knew all of Sherlock’s tells. 

“You agreed, Sherlock,” John’s voice is quiet but heated. 

“The brace went awry, on the way down. I didn’t have enough time and therefore couldn’t,” he clears his throat, still not looking at John’s face, looking instead at the doctor’s hand on his knee. “I couldn’t test for all variables. There wasn’t enough _time_. I, erm, fell with quite a bit more force than originally planned for. The brace worked, but barely, and not well enough to stop certain things from happening.” 

Sherlock stops, hands tightening in his lap. He’s has to physically stop himself from touching the scar left from the hard edge of the Kevlar vest and the ribs that had forced their way through the skin. Sherlock stills his hands and grabs the proffered tea, swallowing too much at once but it is a necessary distraction. 

“What happened, Sherlock?” John’s voice has lost a bit of the edge, but it now holds a bit of annoyance from having to prompt Sherlock, quite like a parent having to practically force a child to spell out exactly how the kitchen window had got broken while they were playing football in the yard. 

“Five broken ribs, punctured lung, severe lacerations along the base of the rib cage and several other broken bones, including left femur and tibia, pelvis, right clavicle, and both scapulae. No serious damage to any internal organs, other than the lung, amazingly, but lasting damage all the same. One hundred sixty-five stiches in total and seven weeks bedrest while mending.” 

John has gone quiet but he’s not crying or getting any angrier than before. 

Sherlock looks at his face and sees something he’s not quite sure how to categorise: it’s halfway between pity, affection, and sorrow. It pinches something in the center of Sherlock’s chest and he has to swallow against it. He sets his cup down on the table again and when he sits back into the sofa he grabs John’s hand. 

“Scars?” asks John, and now Sherlock can hear what he calls his _doctoring_ voice. 

“Yes. Lots,” says Sherlock, because it’s just enough of the truth that John will be satisfied but not enough of the truth where he’ll react negatively. 

“Ah.” 

They sit that way for some time. Sherlock thinks John is mulling over what to ask next but he can’t be sure he’s still not stewing over what he’s already told him. 

“I think I need a drink,” says John abruptly, standing and walking to where the alcohol is kept. Without the cane. 

John and Sherlock realize this at the same time; John’s hand stills on the stopper to the whisky decanter and Sherlock stiffens where he’s remained on the lounge. 

“God, you bastard,” John says under his breath, but he proceeds to pour an entirely too full snifter and return to the couch, sitting even closer to Sherlock than before. 

“Molly helped with the healing process?” he asks after a swallow-and-wince from his glass. 

“Yes. Until about three weeks in. Mycroft discovered us, then. Later than I had anticipated but still entirely too soon for my liking,” Sherlock says, not stopping himself from leaning in to John’s touch this time. 

John scoffs a laugh at the clear and familiar derision he can hear in Sherlock’s voice. 

“Did he bring his doctors in?” 

“Yes. Specialists. They fixed me up proper,” the derision in Sherlock’s voice thickens as he remembers the damn imbeciles he had to deal with. 

“Ah,” is all John says in return. Sherlock can hear the unspoken _I’m a doctor, specialist even, but he didn’t bring me in_. He aches with the force of his affection and genuine regret. 

“John, if there were-.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I had to remain here. Alone. Grieving. Going insane with guilt. Going insane with how big this damn flat seems without you. I got it.” Anger tinges his voice and it makes it especially bitter on Sherlock’s ears. 

They fall into a heated silence, only broken by John’s swallows as he finishes off his snifter in three swigs. 

“Okay, so after you healed. Where did you go?” 

“I spent three weeks in Prague, chasing down the footmen for Moriarty’s organization. From there we went to Portland, chasing down the ones that had known we were coming -,” 

“We?” 

“Ah,” Sherlock has slipped. He is not by any means ready for this conversation and it is making him sloppy. “Yes. On Mycroft’s albeit limited intel, I traveled from place to place hunting down every single part of Moriarty’s web, with Irene Adler.” 

If John had had anything in his mouth it would have been spewed across the table in front of them. He settles for making choking noises that worry Sherlock but he soon calms down and resorts to simply making goggly eyes at Sherlock, mouth open a bit. 

“Irene Adler was beheaded,” John says simply. 

“Yes, well, I did say Mycroft’s intel was limited, did I not?” 

John looks sheepish, then, knowing he was caught out in a lie. 

That niggling warmth in Sherlock’s chest blooms a bit more with the pink smears high on John’s sallow cheeks. 

He grasps his doctor’s hands with both of his and waits for John to look him in the eye. When he speaks his voice is quiet and hatefully thick with undisguised affection. 

“I don’t understand why you insist upon lying to me when you know who I am and what I do.” 

John grunts in reluctant agreement, tightening his grip on Sherlock’s hands in return. 

“So, Irene Adler, huh?” 

“Yes, John. Miss Adler was imperative in the operation, despite her somewhat extensive connection with Moriarty. In fact, it was precisely because of her connections with him that she became imperative. She owed me a favor, several in fact, and they were repaid in full. We parted ways just after the knife fight in Lima I spoke about earlier.” 

“How long ago was this?” 

“Two years, four months, and sixteen days.” 

“Have you spoken with her since then?” 

“Yes. We text and email occasionally.” 

“Ah.” 

“Yes.” Sherlock says unnecessarily. John’s tone of voice is making him think that perhaps the doctor’s uneasy with the amount of time Sherlock spent in Irene’s company. He doesn’t speak on it. 

“So, Portland?” 

“Yes. We finished our business there and flew across the country to Atlanta, Georgia, where we infiltrated the head of operations there, ripping it apart from the inside out,” Sherlock says quietly. He didn’t like to remember Atlanta; he’d killed many people there, and some of them were not exactly explicit workers for Moriarty. The words “innocent” and “bystander” have bounced around in his head since the day he and Irene had taken actual initiative with guns and knives. 

“And from there?” John asks, as quietly as Sherlock has become. He hasn’t forgotten the tone Sherlock uses when he doesn’t want to go any farther with a topic and decides that getting Sherlock to explain any of this at all is enough for right now so he won’t push this point. 

“From Atlanta we flew to Lima.” 

“And how many other scars are from Lima?” 

“Just the knife-and-tetanus scar.” 

“And from Lima you were alone?” 

“Yes, with Mycroft’s persistent and unnecessary assistance from across the Atlantic.” 

“Where to then?” 

“India. Got three scars there but created even more.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yes.” Sherlock lifts his sleeves, showing John the three perfectly parallel scars adorning his right arm just above the elbow and his left arm just below. “She had a quite clever contraption that ejected from her sleeves, like in that horrid _Bend_ film you made me watch.” 

“Bond,” John corrects as he touches each of the raised points of flesh in turn. Sherlock’s skin itches pleasantly where the doctor’s fingers trail. 

“And from there?” 

“Erm, from India I traveled to Iraq,” Sherlock says, more than a bit distracted by John’s gently prodding fingers. 

“And?” 

“Killed people, fixed what was wrong, and left. For Laos, this time. Dreadfully boring part of the jungle. Sat for three months talking to man who ended up knowing precisely who I was and why I was there. He wanted to die so I let him go.” 

John’s hand stills. 

“How many people have you killed in the past three years, Sherlock?” 

Sherlock sits straighter in his spot, rolling down and buttoning his sleeves back up. He sniffs in what he meant to be derision but it fails. 

“Sherlock?” 

Sherlock says nothing but looks at John, pleading with his eyes. 

“I don’t want to answer that question, John.” 

John is stunned by the depth in Sherlock’s eyes and the weight of his gaze makes his breath go shuddery. John wants to know everything that Sherlock went through, but with this one question John now knows that Sherlock doesn’t want him to know; doesn’t want to know all of it himself. 

“Alright, then,” John says, nearly a whisper. Sherlock relief is palpable. His face relaxes almost immediately, all his muscles losing some of their stiffness. 

John can’t stand the idea that Sherlock could be as tense and closed off as he was seconds ago, at least not right now, so he decides to drop the entire subject for tonight. 

“Hand me the remote, would you?” 

Sherlock’s already somewhat loose muscles go completely limp and John watches him close his eyes in sheer relief. 

Slowly Sherlock turns his head toward the man next to him and opens his eyes. 

“Thank you,” he says, reaching for the remote and handing it to John. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I have changed the rating from mature to explicit.

Despite his sometimes-infinite patience, Sherlock can handle crap telly for only so long. True, John did spark an interest for it in him before, but after being alert constantly for the past three years, one will get a little edgy with 3 hours of inactivity. Sherlock’s hands keep clenching and unclenching on his thighs.

John isn’t watching the television, hasn’t been watching since maybe fifteen minutes in. He’s been committing the new lines on Sherlock’s face to memory, imagining the reasons for the grey at his temples as a vague sort-of mass instead of directly mentally reviewing what Sherlock has told him of his time abroad (dead). John isn’t at his best and doesn’t exactly want to jump such an enormous emotional hurtle right now, so he’ll keep with his cataloguing-study of the dead man next to him.

Sherlock’s not been idle, either. He’s not rememorized the sounds of night-time London, reacquainted himself with the achingly familiar sounds of night-time 221B, and is now re-familiarizing himself with the sounds of night-time John.

John’s breathing is heavy, but not laboured. John’s stomach has begun growling, but more with the sounds of uneasy digestion rather than hunger. When he moves his left leg, his jeans squeak against the leather. Perhaps an hour ago John reached over and took Sherlock’s hand in his again, rubbing reaffirming circles into the soft skin with his thumb.

Fifteen minutes ago John’s breathing turned slow and shallow and out of the corner of his eye Sherlock can see John’s eyelids droop.

Being Sherlock, he knows John won’t move from this couch of his own volition, not without some action on Sherlock’s part. But being himself, Sherlock has no idea how to get John to go to bed. John will likely have vivid nightmares through the night, if he can get to sleep at all. Emotional upset has always spurred the limp and depression back into John’s being, as well.

Sherlock remembers when John had to rush off to hospital one night, perhaps four years ago, because Harry had been admitted for alcohol poisoning. It only took a short but vigorous chase through London’s alleyways for the limp to leave but John woke every night for the next three weeks yelling for troops that weren’t there.

Sherlock doesn’t want a repeat of that.

His voice is rumbly and hoarse and it startles himself as much as it does John.

“You’re going to get a crick in your neck, John.”

John hears what he means ( _of course he does, he’s John_ ), and he just scoffs.

“No,” he says simply.

There’s the fear of a thousand things in that little petulant word and Sherlock is uncertain and unsure and this is definitely _not his area_ as he stands, dragging John up with him.

“I don’t like it when you get cricks, you’re annoying,” and that gets him a startled laugh. Sherlock turns the telly off and walks, still with John’s hand in his, toward the stairs.

“Come on, then.”

“Sherlock, I…” John stops, hand tightening around Sherlock’s.

“No, you need sleep and the sofa doesn’t have nearly as much lumbar support as your mattress. Upstairs, let’s go.”

As with nearly every other situation, Sherlock will bully through this without repentance.

“I-,” John starts, but Sherlock’s dragging him up the stairs and John’s suddenly too busy concentrating on his left leg to object.

“I’m not going to go anywhere while you sleep, I promise. I’ll sit in the chair and read one of those awful ‘crime’ novels you love so much.” John scoffs a laugh at the nearly audible quote marks around ‘crime.’

“I’ve never finished one, you’ve spoiled them all for me almost before I began.”

“They’re ridiculously simple, John, if only you’d observe patterns-”

“Yeah, yeah, patterns and observing, I’ve heard that before,” John laughs and sits down on the bed.

“You never listen, though,” Sherlock says quietly, shoving his now free hands into his trouser pockets, noticing and cataloguing everything changed in the room in an instant before he turns his full attention back to John.

His shoulders are rounded in exhaustion and the black smudges beneath his eyes are accentuated by the sheer grey pallor his skin has taken on. Sherlock would worry that John were physically ill if he didn’t know exactly what was wrong with the man.

“Sleep, John, I’ll be here when you wake,” Sherlock says quietly. He sees John’s eyes spark at the extremely obvious omission of the word ‘morning’ because he knows better than Sherlock his sleep will be interrupted before the sun rises.

“Yes, Doctor,” John says snarkily, but he leans toward the headboard and tugs the duvet out from under himself without standing. He wriggles underneath it and settles in, facing Sherlock, who’s now curled up in John’s wingback leather armchair, a Jason Bourne novel in his hands, disdain etched into every pore as he flips the pages.

John’s eyelids droop further and further, lulled to sleep by the whisper of paper against violinist’s fingers, but he fights it tooth and nail and Sherlock sighs heavily.

“John, humans are born knowing how to sleep and you don’t have the capability of deleting the process from your DNA, so sleep for God’s sake.”

John rolls to his back, more awake now that Sherlock has spoken.

“I can’t,” John says quietly, shamefully, rubbing his face.

“You can, but won’t because you’re afraid when you wake up this will have been a dream, or worse, another hallucination, and I’m here to guarantee that you are not dreaming nor are you hallucinating so close your eyes and go to sleep, damnit. You’re useless when you’re tired, John, we both know that.”

“Christ, Sherlock, would… Would you just, I dunno, lay here so…” John doesn’t have to finish before Sherlock’s crawled over him with the novel and is propped up against the headboard on top of the covers.

“Go to sleep, John,” Sherlock says quietly but firmly.

“Yeah,” John clears his throat, still a bit surprised at Sherlock. “Yeah, alright.”

John tries again to close his eyes and just _rest_ but with the thoughts and fears and ridiculously ill-timed urges rushing around and bouncing off the walls of his cranium, he fidgets and tosses and _cannot sleep._

“John, I swear, if you do not settle I will drug you,” Sherlock says, voice low and comforting despite his words.

“Christ, Sherlock, how the fuck am I supposed to settle when my best friend has come back from the dead and not even in the fun way you see on the telly? Hm? How the fuck am I suppose to just sleep when you bring everything I’ve fought to muddle through for the past three years down around my ears. Yes, I’m tired, I’m bloody fucking exhausted, but, really, Sherlock, I’m sure I’m not going to be able to sleep a wink so fuck off.” John’s voice doesn’t rise above speaking tones but his point is loud in Sherlock’s head.

“I missed you for every single second I was away, missed London, missed England, missed the goddamn English language, for Christ’s sake, and really, John, I haven’t slept peacefully since Mycroft had me drugged so heavily I was unconscious for three days. I know exactly what you’re feeling, and I also know that you can sleep because whether or not your mind has caught up with it, really, your body knows I’m here and safe and beside you and you have always listened to your body over your mind in ways that I cannot even comprehend so go. To. Sleep. One of us has to,” Sherlock finishes by taking a deep, nearly snappish breath.

“Okay,” is all John says, but he reaches over, wrapping a compact hand around Sherlock’s left wrist, fingers unerringly finding the pulse point.

“Okay,” John says closing his eyes at last.

Sherlock stills, putting the book beside him on the bed. He reaches over, switching the lamp off manually, throwing the bedroom into darkness.

This… _this_ he is used to. _This_ is the place he spent much of the last three years, waiting and plotting and remembering.

This is where he can mull over what he’s had to deal with the last couple of days; he can parse everything he’s feeling (and ignore most of it, if he can’t make heads or tails of it) and be somewhat peaceful with John’s heavy breathing beside him and heavy hand on his wrist.

Sherlock knows the second John slips into sleep because his breathing flattens out and the creases in his face smooth and the grip on his wrist slackens the tiniest bit. Sherlock breathes a bit easier; he thought it’d be much more difficult to get John to sleep.

He imagines he’ll have to stay with John for the next few nights, just to get him healthier. Sherlock supposes he should sleep, too.

He budges down the bed, making his movements as smooth and non-jarring as possible so John doesn’t wake. One sharp tug on the quilt makes John snuffle softly but he slips back under with a tightening of his grip on Sherlock, assuring his subconscious that the other man is, in fact, real and present.

Sherlock gets under the duvet without another hitch, wrapping himself in the smell of John and the very real and palpable feel of John’s body next to him.

How many nights did Sherlock force himself to sleep imagining this exact scenario? How many cold nights spent in rickety shacks and hole-ridden tents did Sherlock pretend John was next to him, keeping vigil while Sherlock stole an often uneasy REM cycle?

Sherlock reaches his free hand out and touches that damn grey patch at the front of John’s head again. He runs his thumb along a slack eyebrow, imagining the way it would quirk playfully when Sherlock did something not good, but not bad enough for serious reprimand.

Sherlock _misses._

He has many possessions. He has thrown away more than many people could hope to own. Sherlock has had cars, motorbikes, two separate flats, and he has a trust fund and allowance on top of all that. Sherlock is wealthy in his name, wealthy in his Work, and wealthy in his science. He could retire to Sussex right now and be perfectly happy raising bees, and he’d never have another financial care.

But here, in John’s bed in 221B, after three years of running and hiding and espionage and killing and subterfuge… Here where it’s simple and cosy and comfortable, Sherlock finds exactly what he’s been missing.

As Sherlock lets go and sleeps, too, he places his own hand around John’s wrist, affirming John’s liveliness next to him.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

_Hot, hot, busy, stinging eyes, horrible stench, shoulder burns, no one’s listening no one is_ listening _but that’s because there’s no one left to listen.  
Everything is dark and it smells bad and John is in the middle of an Afghani war zone, stark naked, bleeding from a bullet hole in his shoulder screaming his lungs out for someone to help him._

No one comes and it’s not long before John comes to terms with this because he’s not an idiot. He stops yelling but there is no reprieve from the sting in his shoulder. It’s not the usual pain; it’s blunter, more like a steam burn than a gunshot wound. It hurts all the same, getting worse as he just stands there, bullets zinging back and forth around him, coming close but never hitting him. He can’t see where they’re coming from, there’s too much activity. John can’t tell what’s moving but he knows there’s movement because everything is motion-blurry, not sand-in-my-eyes blurry.

_Ah._

_That must be it, then._

_I’m dreaming._

_Well, it’s not a horrible dream, so that’s fine by me._

He spoke too soon, because that’s the way things work when you’re dreaming. The sting in his shoulder spreads, intensifying until it feels like one would imagine a piece of A4 would feel being held to a candle. John looks at his shoulder and the skin is mottled and boiling and turning in on itself, dribbling and drooling viscera down his arm and chest and John knows what smells so horrible, now.

He’s melting, from the inside out. It’s not just his shoulder anymore, his feet begin folding and curling back in on themselves and it’s excruciating so John yells and shouts and begs and pleads for help.

Around him, the world carries on as it was, all motion and no substance, and John is crying and begging and reaching out to those things he can’t see but knows they’re moving by him but his hands grasp at air and it _hurts so much._

Across the plaza of which he is pooling in the centre, John sees a form materialize. It’s edges are blurred and fuzzy but it’s less a motion blur and more an everything-around-me-is-moving-but-I’m-standing-still blur and John is so happy he could die.

“Hey! Hey, help me, please, I don’t know where my clothes are and I’m fairly certain I’m in need of a trip to hospital. Help, please, it hurts so much,” John sobs to the person (he can tell it’s a person, now) as they come closer through the busy-ness of the plaza.

“I can’t help you, John, you know that. I’m no good at helping, only hurting,” says the person. John recognizes the voice but the pain in his melting middle is making it hard to think of anything except crying out for help.

“Please, help me, please, do anything, just stop the burning; stop the melting, please. I’m a doctor, just stop the melting and I can fix it. You can go after you stop the melting, just, please help me, I can’t do it on my own, I don’t know how.”

“I told you, I can’t help you, John, I can’t help you because I’m melting, too.”

The motion slows and stops, though no other images appear but the man (it is a man, a man in a great wool coat in the middle of Afghanistan) across the plaza, and John can see the man is telling the truth: his legs have melted to pools around his torso and the coat is floating on top of the mess of human remains.

“That’s too bad, really, because I was so sure you could help,” John has calmed some, the confusion of the motion around him now dissipating. He looks down at the pool of flesh coloured goo he knows is himself and scoffs.

“I was so sure you could help me,” John says sorrowfully, looking up at the man. The man is Sherlock, the damn great coat swirling in the mess that was once his long, long legs.

“I know, John. I was sure I could help, too. We’re the same, and no help to each other at all,” Sherlock says, drawing non-pictures in the different shades of flesh colours in his puddle.

“That’s really too bad, ’cause I am not sure that I can live without you,” John says, trying to unstick himself from the desert floor and move toward Sherlock.

“I’m not sure that I could live without you, either, John,” Sherlock says mournfully, mimicking John’s actions and trying to hoist his torso up and toward John.

They meet halfway and embrace, John’s gooey-sticky-melting fingers wrapping themselves with Sherlock’s riotous curls.

“Well, John, is there anything you can do?” Sherlock asks curiously, playing with the ooze pouring from John’s naked belly.

“No, Sherlock, I think we’re too far gone. I’m sorry.”

“Damn. I think I would have liked to stay, John, with you,” Sherlock says, finally looking John in the face.

John bites his tongue to stop from sobbing. He and Sherlock are making such a mess of the plaza, melted bits of them pooling further and further out as they deteriorate.

“Hey, we can still go out together, right?” John says, prying his right hand out of Sherlock’s hair, leaving pink on his head the same way his head leaves inky black on his hand, and cup Sherlock’s face, keeping eye contact despite the blurring occurring because their eyes are melting now.

Soon there won’t be anything of them left for anyone to find. They’ll hose their remains off the plaza and carry on like always, all that motion picking up and bullets flying and the world carrying on as always.

“Yes, John, together,” and then Sherlock’s vocal chords gurgle down to goo and John has yet to melt as far as Sherlock so he’s yelling and yelling because he’s sure Sherlock’s inner ears have melted, too, but he has to let him know, has to make sure Sherlock knows that he’s here, here to the end -

_______________________________________________________________________________________

“John! John, wake up! John, you must wake up now!” Sherlock’s vocal chords are very much _not_ goo and they’re asserting that fact into John’s own not-goo inner ear as he’s wrenched from sleep.

John sits upright, arms crossed over his shins and face pressed to his knees. He can’t let Sherlock see the tears he can feel drying on his cheeks, he’s seen him cry enough for a lifetime.

“I’m,” his voice is hoarse so he tries again. “Sherlock, I’m awake, I’m alright, just. Just a nightmare. A nightmare and it’s over.”

Sherlock knows John well enough to know that he’s assuring himself as much as Sherlock, so he puts his hand on John’s unwounded shoulder and says “Yes, John, it’s over.”

One hitch of his shoulders and John is turning into Sherlock’s embrace, burying his face into Sherlock’s neck and holding his _not melted_ body to his own _not melted_ body. He breathes in and out, trying to shake the idea that he’s going to die by melting.

“Just a nightmare, John, I’m here, you’re safe, shh,” Sherlock’s doing a fair job of comforting John, which is baffling enough to bring John back to most of his senses and he stiffens in Sherlock’s arms.

Sherlock doesn’t stop running one arm up and down John’s back and he doesn’t stop running one hand through John’s sweat-damp hair and he most definitely _does not_ stop to think about the position they are in because he quite likes having John’s weight against him and if he stops to think about it he’ll realize it’s very much not good.

John relaxes because Sherlock is relaxed and they are silent and still except for the motion of Sherlock’s arm up and down John’s back.

John loosens his grip on Sherlock, bringing one arm around to rest his palm flat on Sherlock’s chest, feeling the normal warmth that means Sherlock is alive and not turning into a pool of human in the desert.

“I’m sorry,” John says. He knows it’s unnecessary.

“I know,” Sherlock replies. He knows that’s unnecessary, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the delay; real life is a bitch. Feedback is encouraged and appreciated. Thanks you all for bearing with me, we're in for the long haul now.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the six-month wait. I thought people had lost interest and then I lost interest and it was a long time before I had gotten enough confidence back to begin writing again. So thank you, to those you pushed and pushed. This one's for Miranda who taught me that it's completely and perfectly okay to be me and write like I mean it.

Sherlock was slowly roused by the scent of camphor and menthol: John’s muscle relaxing emollient cream. His shoulder had been acting up and John spread the slightly acrid heating/cooling ointment every morning after he cleaned his teeth, silently battling his traitorous sinews and bones.

The smell and knowledge made Sherlock angry. He tightened his grip on the sleeping man, trying to use his sheer force of presence to rid John of every ailment.

If only.

Neither of them had slept more than forty minutes at a time during the night; one starting awake with fear that the other was gone. If either of them were in their right minds, they’d certainly roll their eyes in disdain.

Sherlock was the one awake now, fuming in the near-dawn light. He was so angry. Angry at everything. He couldn’t recall ever being so angry. Not even when Mycroft had tattled to Mummy about the small kitchen fire he hadn’t meant to start.

Sherlock was raw. His nerves were flayed and fringed and abraded. He had cried and sobbed his way into a depressed sleep, from which he woke rather violently, reaching for a knife that was no longer under his pillow. John had been there, of course, smoothing his hair from his forehead and his tears from his cheekbones. It was rather humiliating and it made Sherlock feel even less in control.

He had tried to be normal for John last night, luring him upstairs with quips and sarcasm, orders and scoffs. John would never know what it had cost him to stiffen his upper lips and do what he thought needed to be done, and quite right too. John needed Sherlock's genius and being broken together was not the way to making a healthy John.

So in the increasingly morning light, Sherlock resolved to be as close to the Sherlock John remembers as possible, pushing all his own needs and reservations to the dungeons of his mind palace, forcing every last shred of the three years away. It would work. It had to work. If he acted normal for John, put every one of his non insubstantial acting skills into it, he'd eventually adopt the mentality truthfully, and everything would be fine. Everything _had_ to be fine.

Sherlock pressed his index and middle fingers harder against John's radial pulse, and with everyone of John's heartbeats he locked away another irritating problem: his own seemingly immense emotional distress; his (call it what it was) post traumatic stress; his separation anxiety; his incapacity to understand John and the subsequent irritation thereof; and on and on, lastly coming to his unrequited love for the smaller man. This was perhaps the most painful to lock in the dungeons, but Sherlock gave it it's own room, free of any of the darker things like chains and torture devices that held his other... _problems_. Three hundred and sixty eight heartbeats later, Sherlock was relaxed enough to feel the snug warmth the duvet and mattress were providing, paired with John's heat from the other side of the bed Sherlock felt warm and had the minimum amount of tension his muscles had really ever experienced. Sherlock was a veritable puddle against John and the warmth and heat and sheer resolve for change spurred Sherlock into action. He ran his left hand through John's hair, light enough to not waken the man but firm enough that the clean strands dragged across Sherlock's calloused fingertips.

 _Yes,_ thought Sherlock, _yes, John. I will be the Sherlock you remember because that is the Sherlock your muddled brain can handle, and when you are better we can go from there._

John only snuffled and gripped Sherlock's chest closer. Sherlock kept running his fingers through his hair and John relaxed again, melting against Sherlock's side. Sherlock did _not_ think about how nice that really felt, because _that was in the dungeons_. The kiss the day before was borne of stress and relief and grief and the washing away of delusion, that was all. That was all it ever could be. _Oh, I wish it could be different,_ Sherlock thought before he stamped it down, squeezing it into the dungeon with the rest of thoughts similar to it.

John was not well and any advances would be not on. So Sherlock would sit here and fume and plot and plan and be normal for John's sake and deal with his own urges and needs and anything untoward or counterproductive in his head or the privacy of the water closet. Because nothing else could happen. He couldn't let it. John _was. Not. John_ and that was unacceptable.

John's breathing was even and upon every exhale his body settled further into the nook created by Sherlock's too-thin chest and his left arm, which had settled itself quite of its own volition upon John's left hip. It was warm and pleasant and in the now bright morning light Sherlock found he could breathe. With John next to him and his own thought tucked neatly (screamingly, searingly) away, Sherlock could breathe.

_And, God, breathing has never been more boring._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I know some of you are going to be furious that, after six months, there was only an 800 word update, and for that I am exceedingly sorry. I appreciate any and all feedback, it always helps, especially now when I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Let me know if you have anything at all to say, it all is welcome. For those of you still reading and interested, thank you for waiting so long! I love you all and hope to have semi-regular updates from here on out. Feedback, feedback, feedback!


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